 Section 5. Is Being Built Through Night's Templar A tolerable idea of the state of the discussion regarding the propriety of using the locution is being built, and all like expressions, will, it is hoped, be obtained from the following extracts. The Reverend Peter Bullions, in his Grammar of the English Language, says, Quote, there is properly no passive form in English corresponding to the progressive form in the active voice except where it is made by the participle I-N-G, in a passive sense. Thus the house is building, the garments are making, wheat is selling, etc. An attempt has been made by some Grammarians of late to banish such expressions from the language, though they have been used in all times passed by the best writers, and to justify and defend a clumsy selicism, which has been recently introduced chiefly through the newspaper press, but which has gained such currency and is becoming so familiar to the ear that it seems likely to prevail, with all its uncouthness and deformity. I refer to such expressions as, the house is being built, the letter is being written, the mine is being worked, the news is being telegraphed, etc., etc. This mode of expression had no existence in the language till within the last fifty years. Footnote? Bullion's Grammar was published in 1867. End footnote. This indeed would not make the expression wrong were it otherwise unexceptionable, but its recent origin shows that it is not, as is pretended, a necessary form. This form of expression, when analyzed, is found not to express what it is intended to express, and would be used only by such as are either ignorant of its import or are careless and loose in their use of language. To make this manifest, let it be considered first that there is no progressive form of the verb to be, and no need of it, hence there is no such expression in English as is being. Of course the expression is being built, for example, is not a compound of its being and built, but of is and being built, that is, of the verb to be and the present participle passive. Now let it be observed that the only verbs in which the present participle passive expresses a continued action are those mentioned above as the first class in which the regular passive form expresses a continuance of the action, as is loved, is desired, etc., and in which, of course, the form in question is being built is not required. Nobody would think of saying he is being loved. This result is being desired. The use of this form is justified only by condemning and established usage of the language, namely the passive sense in some verbs of the participle in ing. In reference to this, it is flippantly asked, what does the house build? What does the letter write, etc., taking for granted without attempting to prove that the participle in ing cannot have a passive sense in any verb. The following are a few examples from writers of the best reputation, which this novelty would condemn. While the ceremony was performing, Tom Brown. The court was then holding, Sir G. McKenzie, and still be doing, never done, Butler. The books are selling, Allen's Grammar. You know nothing of what is transacting in the regions above us, Dr. Blair. The spot where this new and strange tragedy was acting, E. Everett. The fortress was building, Irving. An attempt is making in the English Parliament, D. Webster. The church now erecting in the city of New York, N. A. Review. These things were transacting in England. Bancroft. This new doctrine is in opposition to the almost unanimous judgment of the most distinguished grammarians and critics who have considered the subject and expressed their views concerning it. The following are a specimen. Expressions of this kind are condemned by some critics, but the usage is unquestionably of far better authority, and according to my apprehension, in far better taste than the more complex phraseology which some late writers adopt in its stead. As the books are now being sold, Gould Brown. As to the notion of introducing a new and more complex passive form of conjugation, as the bridge is being built, the bridge was being built, and so forth, it is one of the most absurd and monstrous innovations ever thought of. The work is now being published is certainly no better English than the work was being published, has been being published, had been being published, shall or will be being published, shall or will have been being published, and so on, through all the moods and tenses. What a language shall we have when our verbs are thus conjugated. Page 361 De War observes The participle in ING is also passive in many instances, as the house's building, I heard of a plan forming, etc., quoted in Frazzi's Grammar, page 49. It would be an absurdity, indeed, to give up the only way we have of denoting the incomplete state of action by a passive form, vis by the participle in ING in the passive sense. Arnold's English Grammar, page 46 The present participle is often used passively, as the ship is building. The form of expression is being built, is being committed, etc., is almost universally condemned by grammarians, but it is sometimes met with in respectable writers. It occurs most frequently in newspaper paragraphs and in hasty compositions, see Worster's Universal and Critical Dictionary, Weld's Grammar, pages 118 and 180. When we say the house is building, the advocates of the new theory ask building what? You might ask in turn when you say the field plows well, plows what? Wheat sells well, sells what? If usage allows us to say, wheat sells at a dollar, in a sense that is not active, why may we not say, wheat is selling at a dollar, in a sense that is not active? Hart's Grammar, page 76 The prevailing practice of the best authors is in favor of the simple form, as the house is building, Weld's School Grammar, page 148. Several other expressions of this sort now and then occur, such as the newfangled and almost uncouth salicism, is being done, for the good old English idiom is doing, an absurd periferous driving out a pointed and pithy turn of the English language. The phrase is being built and others of a similar kind have been for a few years insinuating themselves into our language, still they are not English, Harrison's rise, progress, and present structure of the English language. This mode of expression, the house is being built, is becoming quite common, it is liable however, to several important objections, it appears formal and pedantic, it has not as far as I know the support of any respectable grammarian, the easy and natural expression is the house is building. Professor J. W. Gibbs, end quote Mr. Richard Grant White, in his Words and Their Uses, expresses his opinion of the locution is being in this wise, quote, in bad eminence, at the head of those intruders in language which too many persons seem to be of established respectability, but the right of which to be at all is not fully admitted, stands out the form of speech is being done or rather is being, which about seventy or eighty years ago began to affront the eye, torment the ear, and assault the common sense of the speaker playing in idiomatic English, end quote. Mr. White devotes thirty pages of his book to the discussion of the subject, and adduces evidence that is more than sufficient to convince those who are content with an exparte examination, quote, that it can hardly be that such an incongruous and ridiculous form of speech as is being done, was contrived by a man who by any stretch of the name should be included among grammarians, end quote. Mr. George P. Marsh, in his lectures on the English language, says that the divisor of the locution in question was some grammatical pretender, and that it is, quote, an awkward neologism which neither convenience, intelligibility, nor syntactical congruity demands, end quote. To these gentlemen and to those who are of their way of thinking with regard to his being, Dr. Fitzsward Hall replies at some length in an article published in Scribner's Monthly for April, 1872. Dr. Hall writes, quote, all really well educated in the English tongue lament the many innovations introduced into our language from America, and I doubt if more than one of these novelties deserve acceptation. That one is substituting a compound participle for an active verb used in a neuter signification. For instance, the house is being built instead of the house is building. Such is the assertion and such is the opinion of some anonymous luminary who, for his liberality in welcoming a supposed Americanism, is somewhat in advance of the herd of his countrymen. But note LWKCLKLLDEEXSHTCD of this reverend gentleman's personality I know nothing. He does not say exactly what he means, but what he means is yet unmistakable. The extract given above is from Public Opinion, January 20th, 1866. Almost any popular expression which is considered as a novelty, a Britain is pretty certain to assume, offhand, to have originated on our side of the Atlantic. Of the assertion I have quoted no proof is offered, and there is little probability that its author had any to offer. Our being, in the phrase, our being thrown up, is spoken of in the North American review as an outrage upon English idiom, to be detested, abhorred, executed, and given over to 6,000 penny paper editors, and the fact is that phrases of the form here pointed at have hitherto enjoyed very much less favor with us than with the English. Footnote The analysis taken for granted in this quotation of our being thrown up into our being and thrown up will be dealt with in the sequel and shown to be untenable. End footnote Footnote Volume 14, page 504, 1837. End footnote As lately as 1860, Dr. Wooster, referring to is being built, etc., while acknowledging that this new form has been used by some respectable writers, speaks of it as having been introduced within a few years. Mr. Richard Grant White, by a most peculiar process of ratiosination, endeavors to prove that what Dr. Wooster calls this new form came into existence just 56 years ago. He premises that, in Jarvis's translation of Don Quixote, published in 1742, there occurs were-carrying, and that this, in the addition of 1818, is sophisticated into were-being-carried. This change continues our logician, and the appearance of is-being with a perfect participle in a very few books published between AD 1815 and 1820 indicate the former period as that of the origin of this phraseology, which, although more than half a century old, is still pronounced a novelty as well as a nuisance. Who in the next place devised our modern imperfect passive? The question is not originally of my asking. But as the learned are at open feud on the subject, it should not be passed by in silence. Its divisor is more than likely as undiscoverable as the name of the valiant anti-Diluvian who first tasted an oyster. But the deductive character of the miscreant is another thing. And hereon is a war between the philosophers Mr. G. P. Marsh, as if he had actually spotted the wretched creature passionately and categorically denounces him as some grammatical pretender. But, replies Mr. White, that it is the work of any grammarian is more than doubtful. Conversations with all their faults do not deform language with fantastic solicisms, or even seek to enrich it with new and startling verbal combinations. They rather resist novelty and devote themselves to formulating that which use has already established. In the same page with this Mr. White complements the great unknown as some precise and feeble-minded soul, and elsewhere calls him some pedantic writer of the last generation. To add even one word toward a solution of the naughty point here indicated, transcends I confess my utmost competence. It is painful to picture to oneself the agonizing emotions with which certain philologists would contemplate an authentic effigy of the atilla of speech, who by his is being built or is being done, first offered violence to the whole circle of the proprieties. So far as I have observed, the first grammar that exhibits them is that of Mr. R. S. Skillern, M.A., the first edition of which was published at Gloucester, in 1802. Robert Sothe had not, on the 9th of October, 1795, been out of his minority quite two months when evidently delivering himself in a way that had already become familiar enough, he wrote of a fellow whose uttermost upper grinder is being torn out by the roots by a mutton-fisted barber. FUTNOTE The Life and Correspondence of the Late Robert Sothe, Volume 1, Page 249 END FUTNOTE This is in a letter, but repeated instances of the same kind of expression are seen in Sothe's graver writings, thus in his colloquies, etc., we read of such nunneries as at this time are being re-established. FUTNOTE Volume 1, Page 338 A student who is being crammed, that verb is eternally being declined. The Doctor, Page 38 and 40 MONOTOME EDITION END FUTNOTE While my hand was being dressed by Mr. Young, I spoke for the first time, wrote Coleridge, in March 1797. Charles Lamb speaks of realities which are being acted before us, and of a man who is being strangled. Walter Savage Lander, in an imaginary conversation, represents Pitt as saying, The man who possesses them may read Swedenburg, and Kant, while he is being tossed in a blanket. Again, I have seen nobles, men and women, kneeling in the street before these bishops, when no ceremony of the Catholic Church was being performed. Also in a translation from Catalysts. Some criminal is being tried for murder. Nor does Mr. De Quincey scruple at such English as, Made and Being Made. The bride that was being married to him, and the shafts of heaven were even now being forged. On one occasion he writes, Not done, not even, according to modern purism, being done, as if purism meant exactness rather than the avoidance of neotirism. I need surely name no more among the dead who found is being built or the like acceptable. People-minded common people and those of culture were alike protected against it by their attachment to the idiom of their mother tongue, with which they felt it to be directly at variance. So Mr. White informs us. But the writers whom I have quoted are formidable exceptions. Even Mr. White will scarcely deny to them the title of people of culture. So much for offender's past repentance. But we all know that the sort of phraseology under consideration is daily becoming more and more common. The best written of the English reviews, magazines and journals are perpetually marked by it, and some of the choicest of living English writers employ it freely. Among these it is enough if I specify Bishop Wilberforce and Mr. Charles Reid. In Put Yourself in His Place, Chapter 10 he writes, She basked in the present delight, and looked as if she was being taken to heaven by an angel. End footnote. Extracts from Bishop Jewel downward being also given. Lord Macaulay, Mr. Dickens, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Brooklyn Eagle are alleged by Mr. White in proof that people still use such phrases as Chelsea Hospital was building, and the train was preparing. Hence we see, he adds, that the form is being done, is being made, is being built, lacks the support of authoritative usage from the period of the earliest classical English to the present day. Footnote. Words, etc. Page 340. End footnote. I fully concur with Mr. White in regarding neither the Brooklyn Eagle nor Mr. Dickens as a very high authority in the use of language, yet when he has renounced the aid of these contend straws, what has he to rest his inference on as to the present day but the practice of Lord Macaulay and the Atlantic Monthly? Those who think fit will bow to the dictatorship here prescribed to them, but there may be those with whom the classic sanction of Sothi, Coleridge, and Lander will not be wholly void of weight. All scholars are aware that to convey the sense of the imperfect passive our ancestors centuries ago prefixed with is, etc., in, afterward corrupted into ah, to a verbal substantive. The house's in-building could be taken to mean nothing but eighties a different counter, and when the in gave place to ah, it was still manifest enough from the context that building was governed by a preposition. Footnote. Thomas Fuller writes, at his arrival the last stake of the Christians was on losing. The history of the Holy War, page 218, edition 1647. End footnote. The second stage of change, however, namely when the ah was omitted, entailed in many cases great danger of confusion. In the early part of the last century, when English was undergoing what was then thought to be purification, the polite world substantially resigned is a building to the vulgar. Toward the close of the same century, when under the influence of free thought, it began to be felt that even ideas had a right to faithful and unequivocal representation. A just resentment of ambiguity was evidenced in the creation of is being built. The lament is too late that the instinct of reformation did not restore the old form. It has gone forever, and we are now to make the best of its successors. The brass is forging, in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, is a vicious expression, probably corrupted from a phrase more pure, but now somewhat obsolete. The brass is a forging. Yet with a true Tory's timidity and aversion to change, it is not surprising that he went on preferring what he found established, vicious as it confessedly was, to the end. But was the expression vicious solely because it was a corruption? In 1787 William Beckford wrote as follows of the fortune-tellers of Lisbon. I saw one dragging into light, as I passed by the ruins of a palace thrown down by the earthquake. Whether a familiar of the inquisition was griping her in his clutches, or whether she was taking to account by some disappointed votary, I will not pretend to answer. Are the expressions here italicized either perspicuous or graceful? Whatever we are to have in their place, we should be thankful to get quit of them. In as much as concurrently with building for the active participle and being built for the corresponding passive participle, we possessed the former with is prefixed as the active present imperfect. It is in rigid accordance with the symmetry of our verb that, to construct the passive present imperfect, we prefix is to the latter, producing the form is being built. Such in its greatest simplicity is the procedure which, as will be seen, has provoked a very levanter of ire and vilification. But anything that is new will be accepted to by minds of a certain order. Their tremulous and impatient dread of removing ancient landmarks even disqualifies them for thoroughly investigating its character and pretensions. In has built and will build, we find the active participle perfect and the active infinitive subjoined to auxiliaries. And so, in has been built and will be built, the passive participle perfect and the passive infinitive are subjoined to auxiliaries. In is building and is being built, we have in strict harmony with the constitution of the perfect and future tenses in auxiliaries followed by the active participle present and the passive participle present. Built is determined as active or passive by the verbs which qualify it, have and be. And the grammarians are right in considering it when embodied in has built as active since its analog embodied in has been built is the exclusively passive been built. Besides this, has been plus built would signify something like has existed, built, which is plainly neuter. Footnote I express myself in this manner because I distinguish between be and exist. End footnote We are debarred therefore from such an analysis and by parity of reasoning we may not resolve is being built into is being plus built. It must have been an inspiration of analogy, felt or unfelt, that suggested the form I am discussing. Is being plus built as it can mean pretty nearly only exists, built would never have been proposed as adequate to convey any but a neuter sense, whereas it was perfectly natural for a person aiming to express a passive sense to prefix is to the passive concretion being built. Footnote Samuel Richardson writes, Jenny who attends me here has more than once hinted to me that Miss Jervis loves to sit up late, either reading or being read to by Anne, who though she reads well is not fond of the task. Sir Charles Grandison, volume 3, page 46, edition 1754. The transition is very slight by which we pass from sits being read to to is being read to. End footnote The analogical justification of is being built which I have brought forward is so obvious that as it occurred to myself more than twenty years ago, so it must have occurred spontaneously to hundreds besides. It is very singular that those who, like Mr. Marsh or Mr. White, have pondered long and painfully over locutions typified by is being built, should have missed the real ground of their grammatical defensiveness, and should have warmed themselves in their opposition to them into uttering opinions which no calm judgment can accept. One who is being beaten is to archbishop weightly uncouth English. The bridges being built and other phrases of the like kind have pained the eye of Mr. David Booth. Such phrases according to Mr. M. Harrison are not English. To Professor J. W. Gibbs this mode of expression appears formal and pedantic. And the easy and natural expression is, the house is building. Footnote I am here indebted to the last edition of Dr. Worster's Dictionary, Preface, page 39. End footnote In all this little or nothing is discernible. And sheer prejudice, the prejudice of those who resolve to take their stand against an innovation, regardless of its utility, and who are ready to find an argument against it in any random epithet of disparagement provoked by unreasoning aversion. And the more recent denouncers in the same line have no more reason on their side than their elder brethren. In Mr. Marsh's estimation, is being built illustrates corruption of language. It is clumsy and un-idiomatic. It is at best but a philological cox-comery. It is an awkward neologism, which neither convenience, intelligibility, nor syntactical congruity demands, and the use of which ought therefore to be discountenanced, as an attempt at the artificial improvement of the language in a point which needed no amendment. Again, to reject is-building in favor of the modern phrase is to violate the laws of language by an arbitrary change. And in this particular case the proposed substitute is at war with the genius of the English tongue. Mr. Marsh seems to have fancied that wherever he points out a beauty in is-building, he points out, inclusively, a blemish in is-being-built. The fervor and feeling with which Mr. White advances to the charge are altogether tropical. The full absurdity of this phrase, the essence of its nonsense, seems not to have been hitherto pointed out. It is not consistent with reason, and it is not conformed to the normal development of the language. It is a monstrosity, the illogical, confusing, inaccurate, un-idiomatic character of which I have at some length, but yet imperfectly set forth. Finally, in fact, it means nothing, and is the most incongruous combination of words and ideas that ever attained respectable usage in any civilized language. These be brave ords, and it seems a pity that so much sterling, the tu-perative ammunition, should be expended in vain. And that it is so expended, thinks Mr. White himself, for, though passing sentence in the spirit of a Jefferies, he is not really on the judgment seat, but on the lowest has-ic of despair. As concerns the mode of expression exemplified by is-being-built, he owns that to check its diffusion would be a hopeless undertaking. If so, why not reserve himself for service against some evil not avowedly beyond remedy? Again we read, some precise and feeble-minded soul having been taught that there is a passive voice in English, and that, for instance, building is an active participle, and build-it or built a passive, felt conscientious scruples at saying the house is building. For what could the house build? As children say at play, Mr. White burns here. If it had occurred to him that the conscientious scruples of his hypothetical precise and feeble-minded soul were roused by been-built, not by built, I suspect his chapter on is-being-built would have been much shorter than it is at present, and very different. The fatal absurdity in this phrase consists, he tells us, in the combination of is with being. In the making of the verb to be a supplement, or in Gremarion's phrase, an auxiliary to itself, an absurdity so palpable, so monstrous, so ridiculous, that it should need only to be pointed out to be scouted. Footnote, words and their uses, page 353. End footnote. Lastly, the question is thus narrowed simply to this. Does to be being, as it ends, mean anything more or other than to be? Having convicted Mr. White of a mistaken analysis, I am not concerned with the observations which he founds on his mistake. However, even if his analysis had been correct, some of his arguments would avail him nothing. For instance, is being built, on his understanding of it, that is to say, is being plus built, he represents by ends edificatis est, as the supposed corresponding Latin phrase. Footnote, it is being is simply equal to it is, and in the supposed corresponding Latin phrases, ends factus est, ends edificatis est. The absoluteness of ends as a participle being granted. The monstrosity is not in the use of ends with factus, but in that of ends with est. The absurdity is, in Latin, just what it is in English, the use of is with being, the making of the verb to be a compliment to itself. Ibid, pages 354, 355. Apparently Mr. White recognizes no more difference between supplement and compliment than he recognizes between be and exist. See the extract I have made above from page 353. End footnote. The Latin is illegitimate, and he infers that therefore the English is the same. But edificatis est, a translation on the model which he offers of the active is-building, is quite as illegitimate as ends edificatis est. By parity of non-sequitur, we are, therefore, to surrender the active is-building. Assume that a phrase in a given language is indefensible unless it has its counterpart in some other language. From the very conception and definition of an idiom, every idiom is illegitimate. I now pass to another point, to be and to exist are, to Mr. White's apprehension, perfect synonyms or more nearly perfect perhaps than any two verbs in the language. In some of their meanings there is a shade of difference, but in others there is none whatever, and the latter are those which serve our present purpose. When we say he, being forewarned of danger, fled. We say he, existing forewarned of danger, fled. When we say that a thing is done, we say that it exists done. Is being done is simply exists, existing done. But since is and exists are equipollant, and so being and existing. Is being is the same as the unimpeachable is existing. To none, E.D., is existing, ought of course to be no less objectionable to Mr. White than is being. Just as absurd too, should be, reckon the Italian, sono Stato era Stato sia Stato, fa si Stato, sara Stato, sari Stato, esser Stato, and essendo Stato. Or in Italian both esser and stare are required to make up the verb substantive, as in Latin both essay and the offspring of fuere are required. And stare, primarily to stand, is modified into a true auxiliary. The alleged full absurdity of this phrase, to wit, is being built, the essence of its nonsense vanishes thus into thin air. So I was about to comment bluntly, not forgetting to regret that any gentleman's cultivation of logic should fructify in the shape of irrepressible tendencies to suicide. But this would be precipitant. Agreeably to one of Mr. White's judicial placeta, which I make no apology for citing twice, no man who has preserved all his senses will doubt for a moment that to exist a mastiff or a mule is absolutely the same as to be a mastiff or a mule. Declining to admit their identity I have not preserved all my senses, and accordingly, though it may be in me the very superfutation of lunacy, I would caution the reader to keep a sharp eye on my arguments, hereabouts particularly. The Cretan, who, in declaring all Cretans to be liars, left the question of his veracity doubtful to all eternity, fell into a pit of his own digging. Not unlike the unfortunate Cretan, Mr. White has tumbled headlong into his own snare. It was for the rest entirely unavailing that he insisted on the insanity of those who should gainsay his fundamental postulate. Sanity of accrued sort may accept it, and sanity may put it to a use other than its propounders. Mr. Marsh, after setting forth the all-sufficiency of is-building, in the passive sense, goes on to say, the Reformers who object to the phrase I am defending must in consistency employ the proposed substitute with all passive participles, and in other tenses as well as the present. They must say, therefore, the subscription paper is being missed, but I know that a considerable sum is being wanted to make up the amount. The great Victoria Bridge has been being built more than two years. When I reach London, the ship Leviathan will be being built. If my orders had been followed, the coat would have been being made yesterday. If the house had then been being built, the mortar would have been being mixed. We may reply that, while awkward instances of the old form are most abundant in our literature, there is no fear that the repulsive elaborations which have been worked out in ridicule of the new forms will prove to have been anticipations of future usage. There was a time when, as to their adverbs, people compared them to a large extent with E.R. and E.S.T., or with more and most, just as their ear or pleasure dictated. They wrote plainlier and plainliest, or more plainly and most plainly, and some adverbs, as early, late, often, seldom, soon, we still compare in a way, now become anomalous. And as our forefathers treated their adverbs, we still treat many adjectives. Furthermore, obligingness, preparedness, and designately seem quite natural, yet we do not feel that they authorize us to talk of the seeingness of the eye, the understoodness of a sentence, or of a statement acknowledgeably correct. The now too notorious fact is tolerable, but the never-to-be-sufficiently-execrated monster-bonapart is intolerable. The sun may be shorn of his splendor, but we do not allow cloudy weather to shear him of it. How, then, can any one claim that a man who prefers to say is being built should say has been being built? Are not awkward instances of the old form typified by is-building as easily to be picked out of extant literature as such instances of the new form likely ever to be used are to be invented? And the reformers have not foresworn their ears. Mr. Marsh, at page 135 of his admirable lectures, lays down that the adjective reliable, in the sense of worthy of confidence, is altogether unidiomatic. And yet at page 112 he writes reliable evidence. Again, at page 396 of the same work he rules that whose, in I pass to house whose, windows were open, is by no means yet fully established. And at page 145 of his very learned man in nature he writes a quadrangular pyramid, the perpendicular of whose sides, etc. Really, if his own judgment sits so very loose on his practical conscience, we may, without being chargeable with exaction, ask of him to relax a little the rigor of his requirements at the hands of his neighbors. Beckford's Lisbon fortune teller before had, into court, was dragging into light and perchance was taking to account. Many moderns would say and write being dragged into light and was being taken to account. But if we are to trust the conservative critics in comparison with expressions of the former pattern, those of the latter are uncouth, clumsy, awkward neologisms, philological coxcomeries, formal and pedantic, incongruous and ridiculous forms of speech, illogical, confusing, inaccurate monstrosities. Moreover, they are neither consistent with reason nor conformed to the normal development of the language. They are at war with the genius of the English tongue. They are unidiomatic. They are not English. In passing, if Mr. Marsh will so define the term unidiomatic as to evidence that it has any applicability to the case in hand, or if he will arrest and photograph the genius of the English tongue so that we may know the original when we meet it, he will confer a public favor. And now I submit for consideration whether the sole strength of those who decry is being built and its congeners does not consist in their talent for calling hard names. If they have not an uneasy subconsciousness that their causes weak, they would at least do well in eschewing the violence to which, for want of something better, the advocates of weak causes proverbially resort. I once had a friend who, for some microscopic penumbra of heresy, was charged in the words of his accuser with as near an approach to the sin against the Holy Ghost as is practicable to human infirmity. Similarly, on one view, the feeble potencies of philological turpitude seem to have exhibited their most consummate realization in engendering is being built. The supposed enormity perpetrated in its production provided it had fallen within the sphere of ethics would, at the least, have ranked with its denunciators as a brand new exemplification of total depravity. But, after all, what incontestable defect in it has anyone succeeded in demonstrating? Mr. White, in opposing to the expression objections based on an erroneous analysis, simply lays a phantom of his own evoking, and so far as I am informed, other impuners of is being built have absolutely no argument whatever against it over and beyond their repugnance to novelty. Subjected to a little untroubled contemplation, it would, I am confident, have ceased long ago to be a matter of controversy. But the dust of prejudice and passion, which so distempers the intellectual vision of theologians and politicians, is seen to make with ruthless impartiality no exception of the perspicacity of philologists. Prior to the evolution of is being built and was being built, we possessed no discriminant equivalence to edificatur and edificabatur, is built and was built. By which they were rendered, corresponding exactly to edificatus est and edificatus erat. Koum edificatur was to us the same as edificabatur. On the wealth of the Greek expressions of imperfect passive I need not dwell. With rare exceptions the Romans were satisfied with the present imperfect and the past imperfect, and we on the comparatively few occasions which present themselves for expressing other imperfects, shall be sure to have recourse to the old forms rather than to the new, or else to use periphercies. But those things which being not now doing, or having not yet been done, have a natural aptitude to exist hereafter may be properly said to appertain to the future. Harris's Hermes, Book 1, Chapter 8, Page 155, Footnote, Edition 1771. For Harris's being not now doing, which is to translate me genomina, the modern school, if they pursued uniformity with more of fidelity than of taste, would have to put being not now being done. There is not much to choose between the two. End, Footnote. The purists may accordingly dismiss their apprehensions, especially as the neotourists have clearly a keener horror of phraseological ungainliness than themselves. One may have no hesitation about saying the house is being built, and may yet recoil from saying that it should have been being built last Christmas. And the same person, just as provided he did not feel a harshness in adequacy and ambiguity in the past of the house's building, would use the expression, will, more likely than not, elect is in preparation preferentially to is being prepared. If there are any who in their zealotry for the Congress choose to adhere to the new form in its entire range of exchangeability for the old, let it be hoped that they will find in Mr. Marsh's speculative approbation of consistency, full amends for the discomfort of encountering smiles or frowns. At the same time, let them be mindful of the career of Mr. White, with his black flag in no quarter. The dead Polonius was, in Hamlet's phrase, at supper, not where he eats, but where he is eaten. Shakespeare, to Mr. White's thinking, in this wise, expressed himself at the best, and deserves not only admiration, therefore, but to be imitated. While the ark was built, while the ark was prepared, writes Mr. White himself. Shakespeare is commended for his ambiguous is-eaten, though in eating or an-eating would have been not only correct in his day, but where they would have come in his sentence, univocal. With equal reason a man would be entitled to commendation for tearing his mutton chops with his fingers when he might cut them up with a knife and fork. Is eaten, says Mr. White, does not mean has been eaten. Very true, but a continuous, unfinished passion, Polonius' still undergoing manducation to speak Johnsonese, was in Shakespeare's mind. And his words describe a passion no longer in generation. The king of Denmark's Lord Chamberlain had no precedent in Herod, when he was eaten of worms. The original, Que nominos scole cobrotos, yielding but for its participle he became worm-eaten. Having now done with Mr. White, I am anxious before taking leave of him to record with all emphasis that it would be the grossest injustice to write of his elegant life and genius of Shakespeare, a book which does credit to American literature in the tone which I have found unavoidable in dealing with his words and their uses. End quote. The student of English who has honestly weighed the arguments on both sides of the question must, I believe, be of opinion that our language is the richer for having two forms for expressing the progressive passive. Further, he must, I believe, be of opinion that in very many cases he conforms to the most approved usage of our time by employing the old form. That, however, if he were to employ the old form in all cases, his meaning would sometimes be uncertain. It. Cabot discourses of this little neuter pronoun in this wise. Quote. The word it is the greatest troubler that I know of in language. It is so small and so convenient that few are careful enough in using it. Writers seldom spare this word. Whenever they are at a loss for either a nominative or an objective to their sentence, they, without any kind of ceremony, clap in an it. A very remarkable instance of this pressing of poor it into actual service, contrary to the laws of grammar and of sense, occurs in a piece of composition where we might with justice insist on correctness. This piece is on the subject of grammar. It is a piece written by a doctor of divinity and read by him to students in grammar and language in an academy. And the very sentence that I am now about to quote is selected by the author of a grammar as testimony of high authority in favor of the excellence of his work. Surely, if correctness be ever to be expected, it must be in a case like this. I allude to two sentences in the charge of the Reverend Dr. Abercrombie to the senior class of the Philadelphia Academy published in 1806, which sentences have been selected and published by Mr. Lindley Murray as a testimonial of the merits of his grammar, and which sentences are by Mr. Murray given to us in the following words. The unwearyed exertions of this gentleman have done more toward elucidating the obscurities and embellishing the structure of our language than any other writer on the subject. Such a work has long been wanted, and from the success with which it is executed cannot be too highly appreciated. As in the learned doctor's opinion, obscurities can be elucidated, and as in the same opinion Mr. Murray is an able hand at this kind of work, it would not be a miss were the grammarian to try his skill upon this article from the hand of his dignified eulogist. For here is, if one may use the expression, a constellation of obscurities. Our poor oppressed it, which we find forced into the doctor's service in the second sentence, relates to such a work. Though this work is nothing that has an existence, notwithstanding it is said to be executed. In the first sentence, the exertions become, all of a sudden, a writer. The exertions have done more than any other writer. For mind you, it is not the gentleman that has done anything, it is the exertions that have done what is said to be done. The word gentleman is in the possessive case, and has nothing to do with the action of the sentence. Let us give the sentence a turn, and the doctor and the grammarian will hear how it will sound. This gentleman's exertions have done more than any other writer. This is on a level with, this gentleman's dog has killed more hairs than any other sportsman. No doubt Dr. Abercrombie meant to say, the exertions of this gentleman have done more than those of any other writer. Such a work as this gentleman's has long been wanted. His work, seeing the successful manner of its execution, cannot be too highly commended. Ment. No doubt at all of that. And when we hear a Hampshire plow boy say, polled cherry cheek have given a thick hankercher, we know very well that he means to say, polled cherry cheek have given me this hankerchief. And yet we are too apt to laugh at him and to call him ignorant, which is wrong, because he has no pretensions to a knowledge of grammar, and he may be very skillful as a plow boy. However, we will not laugh at Dr. Abercrombie, whom I knew many years ago for a very kind and worthy man, but if we may, in any case, be allowed to laugh at the ignorance of our fellow creatures, that case certainly does arise when we see a professed grammarian, the author of voluminous precepts and examples on the subject of grammar, producing, in imitation of the possessors of valuable medical secrets, testimonials vouching for the efficacy of his literary panacea, and when in those testimonials we find most flagrant instances of bad grammar. However, my dear James, let this strong and striking insistence of the misuse of the word it serve you in the way of caution. Never put an it upon paper without thinking well of what you are about. When I see many it's in a page, I always tremble for the writer. End quote. This is a modern word which we could easily do without, as it means neither more nor less than its venerable progenitor to Jeopard, which is greatly preferred by all careful writers. Just going to. Instead of I am just going to go, it is better to say I am just about to go. Kids. This is another vile contraction. Habit blinds people to the unseemliness of a term like this. How would it sound if one should speak of silk gloves as silks? Kind. Refer to polite. Knight's Templars. The name of this ancient body has been adopted by a branch of the Masonic fraternity, but in a perverted form. Knight's Templar. And this form is commonly seen in print, whether referring to the old knights or to their modern imitators. This doubtless is due to the erroneous impression that Templar is an adjective, and so cannot take the plural form. While in fact it is a case of two nouns in opposition, a double designation, meaning knights of the order of Templars. Hence the plural should be knights Templars, and not knights Templar. Members of the contemporaneous order of St. John of Jerusalem were commonly called knights hospitalars. End of Section 5 Recording by Bill Borst Section 6 of The Verbalist. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bill Borst. The Verbalist by Alfred Ayers. Section 6 Lady Through Number Lady To use the term lady, whether in the singular or in the plural, simply to designate the sex, is in the worst possible taste. There is a kind of pinfeather gentility which seems to have a settled aversion to using the terms man and woman. Gentlemen and ladies establish their claims to being called such by their bearing, and not by arrogating to themselves, even indirectly the titles. In England, the title lady is properly correlative to Lord, but there, as in this country, it is used as a term of complacence, and is appropriately applied to women whose lives are exemplary, and who have received that school and home education which enables them to appear to advantage in the better circles of society. Such expressions as, she is a fine lady, a clever lady, a well-dressed lady, a good lady, a modest lady, a charitable lady, an amiable lady, a handsome lady, a fascinating lady, and the like are studiously avoided by persons of refinement. Ladies say, we women, the women of America, women's apparel, and so on. Volgar women talk about us ladies, the ladies of America, ladies apparel, and so on. If a woman of culture and refinement, in short, a lady, is compelled from any cause so ever to work in a store, she is quite content to be called a saleswoman. Not so, however, with your young woman who being in a store is in a better position than ever before. She, heaven bless her, boils with indignation if she is not denominated a sales lady. Lady is often the proper term to use, and then it would be very improper to use any other, but it is very certain that the terms lady and gentleman are least used by those persons who are most worthy of being designated by them. With a nice discrimination worthy of special notice, one of our daily papers recently said, Miss Jenny Halstead, daughter of the proprietor of the Cincinnati Commercial, is one of the most brilliant young women in Ohio. In a late number of the London Queen was the following, the terms ladies and gentlemen become in themselves vulgarisms when misapplied, and the improper application of the wrong term at the wrong time makes all the difference in the world to ears polite, thus calling a man a gentleman when he should be called a man, or speaking of a man as a man when he should be spoken of as a gentleman, or alluding to a lady as a woman when she should be alluded to as a lady, or speaking of a woman as a lady when she should properly be termed a woman. Tacked, and a sense of the fitness of things decide these points, there being no fixed rule to go upon to determine when a man is a man, or when he is a gentleman. Although he is far often termed the one than the other, he does not thereby lose his attributes of a gentleman. In common parlance a man is always a man to a man, and never a gentleman. To a woman he is occasionally a man, and occasionally a gentleman. But a man would far often term a woman a woman, then he would term her a lady. When a man makes use of an adjective in speaking of a lady he almost invariably calls her a woman. Thus he would say, I met a rather agreeable woman at dinner last night. But he would not say I met an agreeable lady. But he might say, a lady, a friend of mine, told me etc. When he would not say a woman, a friend of mine told me etc. Again, a man would say, which of the ladies did you take into dinner? I would certainly not say which of the women, etc. Quote, speaking of people en masse, it would be to belong to a very advanced school to refer to them in conversation as men and women, while it would be all but vulgar to style them ladies and gentlemen. The compromise between the two being to speak of them as ladies and men. Thus a lady would say, I have asked two or three ladies I have asked several men and women. Neither would she say, I have asked several ladies and gentlemen. And speaking of numbers it would be very usual to say there were a great many ladies and but very few men present, or the ladies were in the majority, so few men being present. Again, a lady would not say, I expect two or three men, but she would say I expect two or three gentlemen. When people are on ceremony with each other, one another, they might perhaps in speaking of a man call him a gentleman, but otherwise it would be more usual to speak of him as a man. Ladies, when speaking of each other, one another, usually employ the term woman in preference to that of lady. Thus they would say she is a very good natured woman. What sort of a woman is she? The term lady being entirely out of place under such circumstances. Again, the term young lady gives place as far as possible to the term girl, although it greatly depends upon the amount of intimacy existing as to which term is employed. End quote. Language. A note in Worcester's dictionary says language is a very general term and is not strictly confined to utterance by words as it is also expressed by the countenance, by the eyes and by signs. Tongue refers especially to an original language as the Hebrew tongue. The modern languages are derived from the original tongues. If this be correct, then he who speaks French, German, English, Spanish, and Italian may properly say that he speaks five languages, but only one tongue. Lay, lie. Errors are frequent in the use of these two irregular verbs. Lay is often used for lie and lie is sometimes used for lay. This confusion in their use is due in some measure doubtless to the circumstance that lay appears in both verbs, it being the imperfect tense of two lie. We say a mason lays bricks. A ship lies at anchor, etc. I must lie down. I must lay myself down. I must lay this book on the table. He lies on the grass. He lays his plans well. He lay on the grass. He laid it away. He has lain in bed long enough. He has laid up some money. In a stock. Down the law. He is laying out the grounds. Ships lie at the wharf. Eggs the ship lay at anchor. The hand laid an egg. It will be seen that lay always expresses transitive action and that lie expresses rest. Here lies our sovereign lord, the king, whose word no man relies on. He never says a foolish thing, nor ever does a wise one. Written on the bed chamber door of Charles II by the Earl of Rochester. Learn. This verb was long ago used as a synonym of teach, but in this sense it is now obsolete. To teach is to give instruction. To learn is to take instruction. I will learn if you will teach me. Refer to teach. Leave. There are grammarians who insist that this verb should not be used without an object. As, for example, it is used as, when do you leave? I leave tomorrow. The object of the verb, home, town, or whatever it may be, is of course understood. But this, say these gentlemen, is not permissible. On this point opinions will, I think, differ. They will, however, not differ with regard to the vulgarity of using leave in the sense of let. Thus leave me be. Leave it alone. Lengthy. Don't bother her. Leave me see it. Lend. Refer to loan. Lengthy. This word is of comparatively recent origin. And though it is said to be an Americanism, it is a good deal used in England. The most careful writers, however, both here and elsewhere much prefer the word long. fingertips etc. Lineancy.Mr. Gould calls this word and leniance to phillological abortions. Lennaty is undoubtedly the proper word to use though both Webster and Worster do recognize leniency and lenience. Less. This word is much used instead of fewer. Less relates to quantity, fewer to number. twenty persons present, we should say there were not fewer than twenty persons present. Lesser This form of the comparative of little is accounted a corruption of less. It may, however, be used instead of less with propriety in verse, and also in some cases in prose. We may say, for example, of two evils choose the less, or the lesser. The latter form, in sentences like this, is the more euphonious. Liable Richard Grant White, in invading against the misuse of this word, cites the example of a member from a rural district, who called out to a man whom he met in the village, where he was in the habit of making little purchases, I say, Mr., can you tell me where I'll be liable to find some beans? Refer also, apt, lie, refer to lay, like, as. Both these words express similarity, like, adjective, comparing things, as, adverb, comparing action, existence, or quality. Like is followed by an object only, and does not admit of a verb in the same construction. As must be followed by a verb expressed or understood. We say, he looks like his brother. Or he looks as his brother looks. Do as I do, not like I do. You must speak as James does, not like James does. He died as he had lived, like a dog. It is as blue as indigo. In other words, as indigo is, like, to, refer to love, likely, refer to apt, lit. This form of the past participle of the verb to light is now obsolete. Have you lighted the fire? The gas is lighted. Hat for heated is a similar but much greater vulgarism. Loan, lend. There are those who contend that there is no such verb as to loan, although it has been found, in our literature, for more than three hundred years. Whether there is properly such a verb or not, it is quite certain that it is only those having a vulgar penchant for big words who will prefer it to its synonym lend. Better far to say lend me your umbrella than loan me your umbrella. Settle. The use of the verb to locate in the sense of to settle is said to be an Americanism, although the dictionaries recognize to locate as a neuter verb as such it is marked rarely used, and in the sense of to settle it is among the vulgarisms that careful speakers and writers are studious to avoid. A man settles, not locates, in Nebraska. Where do you intend to settle, not locate? Refer also to settle, loggerheads. In the meantime France is at loggerheads internally. New York Herald, April 29th, 1881. Loggerheads internally? Looks beautifully. It is sometimes interesting to note the difference between vulgar bad grammar and gentile bad grammar, or more properly between non-painstaking and painstaking bad grammar. The former uses, for example, adjectives instead of adverbs. The latter uses adverbs instead of adjectives. The former says this bonnet is trimmed shocking. The latter says this bonnet looks shockingly. In the first sentence the epithet qualifies the verb is trimmed and consequently should have its adverbial form shockingly. In the second sentence the epithet qualifies the appearance, a noun, of the bonnet, and consequently should have its adjectival form, shocking. The second sentence means to say this bonnet presents a shocking appearance. The bonnet certainly does not really look. It is looked at, and to the looker its appearance is shocking. So we say in like manner of a person that he or she looks sweet, or charming, or beautiful, or handsome, or horrid, or graceful, or timid, and so on, always using an adjective. Miss Coglin, as Lady Teasel, looked charmingly. The grammar of the New York Herald would not have been any more incorrect if it had said that Miss Coglin looked gladly, or sadly, or madly, or delightedly, or pleasantly. A person may look sick or sickly, but in both cases the qualifying word is an adjective. The verbs to smell, to feel, to sound, and to appear are also found in sentences in which the qualifying word must be an adjective and not an adverb. We say, for example, the rose smells sweet. The butter smells good, or bad, or fresh. I feel glad, or sad, or bad, or despondent, or annoyed, or nervous. This construction sounds harsh. How delightful the country appears! On the other hand, to look, to feel, to smell, to sound, and to appear are found in sentences where the qualifying word must be an adverb. Thus, he feels his loss keenly. The king looked graciously on her. I smell it faintly. We might also say he feels sad, adjective, because he feels his loss keenly, adverb. He appears well, adverb. The expression, she seemed confusedly or timidly, is not a whit more incorrect than she looked beautifully or charmingly. Number two adjectives Love Like Men who are at all careful in the selection of language to express their thoughts and have not an undue leaning toward the superlative love few things. Their wives, their sweethearts, their kinsmen, truth, justice, and their country. Women on the contrary, as a rule, love a multitude of things, and among their loves the thing they perhaps love most is taffy, luggage, luggage. The former of these words is generally used in England, the latter in America, lunch. This word, when used as a substantive, may at the best be accounted an inelegant abbreviation of luncheon. The dictionaries barely recognize it. The proper phraseology to use is have you lunched, or have you had your luncheon, or better, have you had luncheon, as we may in most cases presuppose that the person addressed would hardly take anybody's else luncheon. Luxurious, Luxuriant The line is drawn much more sharply between these two words now than it was formerly. This was once used, to some extent at least, in the sense of rank growth. But now all careful writers and speakers use it in the sense of indulging or delighting in luxury. We talk of a luxurious table, a luxurious liver, luxurious ease, luxurious freedom. Luxuriant, on the other hand, is restricted to the sense of rank, or excessive growth, or production. Plus luxuriant weeds, luxuriant foliage, or branches, luxuriant growth. Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, but show no mercy to an empty line. Pope, Mad Professor Richard A. Proctor, in a recent number of the Gentleman's Magazine, says, The word mad in America seems nearly always to mean angry, for mad as we use the word Americans say crazy. Herein they have manifestly impaired the language. Have they? Now in faith, Graciano, you give your wife too unkind a cause of grief, and twer to me I would be mad at it. Merchant of Venice. And being exceedingly mad against them I persecuted them even unto strange cities. Make a visit. The phrase make a visit, according to Dr. Hall, whatever it once was, is no longer English. Male. Refer to female. Mary. There has been some discussion, at one time and another, with regard to the use of this word. Is John Jones married to Sally Brown, or with Sally Brown, or are they married to each other? Inasmuch as the woman loses her name in that of the man to whom she is wedded, and becomes a member of his family, not he of hers, inasmuch as with few exceptions it is her life that is merged in his, it would seem that properly Sally Brown is married to John Jones, and that this would be the proper way to make the announcement of their having been wedded, and not John Jones to Sally Brown. There was also a difference of opinion as to whether the active or the passive form is preferable in referring to a person's wedded state. In speaking definitely of the act of marriage, the passive form is necessarily used with reference to either spouse. John Jones was married to Sally Brown on December 1, 1881. Not John Jones married Sally Brown on such a date. For, unless they were Quakers, some third person married him to her and her to him. But in speaking indefinitely of the fact of marriage, the active form is a matter of course. Whom did John Jones marry? He married Sally Brown. John Jones, when he had sown his wild oats, married, married himself, as the French say, and settled down. Got married is a vulgarism. May. In the sense of can, may in a negative clause has become obsolete. Though we may say a horse, we may not say a ox. The first may here is permissible. Not so, however, the second, which should be can. Meat. At table we ask for and offer beef, mutton, veal, steak, turkey, duck, etc., and do not ask for nor offer meat. Which to say the least is inelegant. Will you have, not take, another piece of beef, not of the beef? Not will you have another piece of meat? Memorandum. The plural is memoranda, except when the singular means a book. Then the plural is memorandums. Mere. This word is not unfrequently misplaced. And sometimes, as in the following sentence, in consequence of being misplaced, it is changed to an adverb. It is true of menace of God that words merely meet with no response. What the writer evidently intended to say is that mere words meet with no response. Metaphor. An implied comparison is called a metaphor. It is a more terse form of expression than the simile. Take for example this sentence from Spencer's Philosophy of Style. As in passing through the crystal, beams of white light are decomposed into the colors of the rainbow. So in traversing the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed into brightly tinted poetry. Expressed in metaphors, this becomes, the white light of truth in traversing the many-sided transparent soul of the poet is refracted into iris-hued poetry. Worcester's definition of a metaphor is a figure of speech founded on the resemblance which one object is supposed to bear in some respect to another, or a figure by which a word is transferred from a subject to which it properly belongs to another, in such a manner that a comparison is implied, though not formally expressed. A comparison or simile comprised in a word, as thy word is a lamp to my feet. A metaphor differs from a simile in being expressed without any sign of comparison, thus the silver moon is a metaphor. The moon is bright as silver is a simile. Examples. But look, the morn, in russet mantle-clad walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a-rooted sorrow? At length Erasmus stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age, and drove those holy vandals off the stage. Centur is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. Metonymy. The rhetorical figure that puts the effect for the cause, the cause for the effect, the container for the thing contained, the sign or symbol for the thing signified, or the instrument for the agent is called metonymy. One very common species of metonymy is when the badge is put for the office, thus we say the mitre for the priesthood, the crown for royalty, for military occupation we say the sword, and for the literary professions, those especially of theology, law, and physics, the common expression is the gown. Campbell. Dr. Quackenbos, in his Course of Composition and Rhetoric, says, Metonymy is the exchange of names between things related. It is founded not on resemblance, but on the relation of, one, cause and effect, as they have Moses and the prophets. In other words, their writings. Gray hairs should be respected, in other words, old age. Two, progenitor and posterity, as here, O Israel, in other words, descendants of Israel, subject and attribute, as youth and beauty shall be laid in dust, in other words, the young and beautiful. Four, place and inhabitant, as what land is so barbarous as to allow this injustice, in other words, what people. Five, container and thing contained, as our ships next opened fire, in other words, our sailors. Six, sign and thing signified, as the scepter shall not depart from Judah, in other words, kingly power. Seven, material and thing made of it, as his steel gleamed on high, in other words, his sword. Petitions having proved unsuccessful, it was determined to approach the throne more boldly. Mitz'd, the, refer to in our Mitz'd, mind, capricious. Lord Salisbury's mind is capricious. Tribune, April 3rd, 1881, refer to equanimity of mind. Misplaced clauses. In writing and speaking, it is as important to give each clause its proper place, as it is to place the words properly. The following are a few instances of misplaced clauses and adjuncts. All these circumstances brought close to us a state of things which we never thought to have witnessed, to witness, in peaceful England. In the sister island, indeed, we had read of such horrors, but now they were brought home to our very household hearth, swift. Better. We had read, indeed, of such horrors occurring in the sister island, et cetera. The savage people in many places in America, except the government of families, have no government at all and live at this day in that savage manner as I have said before. Hobbes. Better. The savage people in America have no government at all, except the government of families, et cetera. I shall have a comedy for you, in a season or two at farthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance. Goldsmith. Bettered. In a season or two at farthest, I shall have a comedy for you, that I believe will be worth your acceptance. Among the following examples of the wrong placing of words and clauses, there are some that are as amusing as they are instructive. This orthography is regarded as normal in England. What the writer intended was in England as normal. A very different thought. The normal school is a commodious building capable of accommodating three hundred students four stories high. Housekeeper. A highly respectable, middle-aged person who has been filling the above situation with a gentleman for upwards of eleven years and who is now deceased is anxious to meet a similar one. Two piano fort-makers. A lady keeping a first-class school requiring a good piano is desirous of receiving a daughter of the above in exchange for the same. The more, seizing a bolster boiling over with rage and jealousy smothers her. The dying Zoav, the most wonderful mechanical representation ever seen of the last breath of life being shot in the breast and life's blood leaving the wound. Mr. T. presents his compliments to Mr. H., and I have got a hat that is not his, and if he have a hat that is not yours, no doubt they are the expectant ones. Refer to only. Misplaced Words Of all the faults to be found in writing, says Khabit, this is one of the most common and perhaps it leads to the greatest number of misconceptions. All the words may be the proper words to be used upon the occasion, and yet by a misplacing of a part of them the meaning may be wholly destroyed, and even may to be the contrary of what it ought to be. I asked the question with no other intention than to set the gentleman free from the necessity of silence, and to give him an opportunity of mingling on equal terms with a polite assembly from which, however uneasy, he could not then escape, by a kind introduction of the only subject on which I believed him to be able to speak with propriety. Dr. Johnson This, says Khabit, is a very bad sentence altogether. However uneasy applies to assembly and not to gentlemen. Only observe how easily this might have been avoided, from which he, however uneasy, could not then escape. After this we have he could not then escape by a kind introduction, we know what is meant, but the doctor, with all his commas, leaves the sentence confused. Let us see whether we cannot make it clear. I asked the question with no other intention than by a kind introduction of the only subject on which I believed him to be able to speak with propriety, to set the gentleman free from the necessity of silence, and to give him an opportunity of mingling on equal terms with a polite assembly from which he, however uneasy, could not then escape. Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above our fellow creatures, the brutes, in this lower world. Dr. Watts Logic I have before showed an error, Khabit remarks, in the first sentence of Dr. Watts' work. This is the second sentence. The words in this lower world are not words misplaced only, they are wholly unnecessary, and they do great harm, for they do these two things. First, they imply that there are brutes in the higher world, and second, they excite a doubt whether we are raised above those brutes. I might greatly extend the number of my extracts from these authors, but here I trust are enough. I had noted down about two hundred errors in Dr. Johnson's lives of the poets, but afterward perceiving that he had revised and corrected the rambler with extraordinary care, I chose to make my extracts from that work rather than from the lives of the poets. The position of the adverb should be as near as possible to the word it qualifies. Sometimes we place it before the auxiliary and sometimes after it, according to the thought we wish to express. The difference between the fish should properly be broiled and the fish should be properly broiled is apparent at a glance. The colon may be properly used in the following cases, should be may properly be used. This mode of expression rather suits a familiar than a grave style, should be, suits a familiar rather than a grave style. It is a frequent error in the writings even of some good authors. Should be in the writings of even some good authors. Both the circumstances of contingency and futurity are necessary. Should be the circumstances of contingency and futurity are both necessary. He has made charges which he has failed utterly to sustain. New York Tribune. Here it is uncertain at first sight which verb the adverbs intended to qualify. But the nature of the case makes it probable that the writer meant has utterly failed to sustain. Mistaken. If I am not mistaken you are in the wrong. Say, if I mistake not. I tell you, you are mistaken. Here mistaken means you are wrong, you do not understand. But it might be taken to mean I mistake you. For you are mistaken, say you mistake. If as Horace and Professor Davidson aver, usage in language makes right, then the grammarians ought long ago to have invented some theory upon which the locution you are mistaken could be defended. Until they do invent such a theory, it will be better to say you mistake, he mistakes, and so on. Or you are, or he is, as the case may be, in error. More perfect. Such expressions as the more perfect of the two, the most perfect thing of the kind I have ever seen, the most complete cooking stove ever invented, and the like, cannot be defended logically as nothing can be more perfect than perfection, or more complete than completeness. Still such phrases are and probably will continue to be used by good writers. Most. Everybody abuses this word, says Mr. Gould in his good English, and then in another paragraph he adds, if a man would cross out most wherever he can find it in any book in the English language, he would in almost every instance improve the style of the book. That this statement may appear within bounds, he gives many examples from good authors, some of which are the following. A most profound silence. A most just idea. A most complete orator. This was most extraordinary. An object of most perfect esteem. A most extensive erudition. He gave it most liberally away. It is most assuredly not because I value his services least. Would most seriously affect us? That such a system must most widely and most powerfully, etc. It is most effectually nailed to the counter. It is most undeniable that, etc. This word is much and very erroneously used for almost. He comes here most every day. The user of such a sentence as this means to say that he comes nearly every day but he really says, if he says anything, that he comes more every day than he does every night. In such sentences almost and not most is the word to use. Mutual. This word is much misused in the phrase our mutual friend. Macaulay says, Mutual friend is a low vulgarism for common friend. Mutual properly relates to two persons and implies reciprocity of sentiment. Sentiment, be it what it may, received and returned. Thus we say properly John and James have a mutual affection or a mutual aversion. In other words they like or dislike each other. Or John and James are mutually dependent. In other words they are dependent on each other. In using the word Mutual, care should be taken not to add the words for each other or on each other. The thought conveyed by these words being already expressed in the word Mutual. Dependent on each other is the exact equivalent of mutually dependent. Hence saying that John and James are mutually dependent on each other is as redundant in form as it would be to say that the editors of the great vilifier are the biggest, greatest mudslingers in America. Myself. This form of the personal pronoun is properly used in the nominative case only where increased emphasis is aimed at. I had as leaf not be as live to be in awe of such a thing as I myself. I will do it myself. I saw it myself. It is therefore incorrect to say Mrs. Brown and myself were both very much pleased. Name. This word is sometimes improperly used for mention. Thus I never named the matter to anyone should be I never mentioned the matter to anyone. Neighborhood. Refer to vicinity. Neither. Refer to either. Neither nor. He would neither give wine nor oil nor money. Thackery. The conjunction should be placed before the excluded object. Neither give implies neither some other verb, a meaning not intended. Rearrange thus taking all the common parts of the contracted sentences together. He would give neither wine nor oil nor money. So she can neither help her beauty nor her courage nor her cruelty. Thackery. Should be. She can help neither, etc. He had neither time to intercept nor to stop her. Scott. Should be. He had time neither to intercept, etc. Some neither can for wits nor critics pass. Pope. Should be. Some can neither for wits nor critics pass. Never. Grammarians differ with regard to the correctness of using never in such sentences as he is in error, though never so wise. Charm he never so wisely. In sentences like these, to say the least, it is better in common with the great majority of writers to use ever. New. This adjective is often misplaced. He has a new suit of clothes and a new pair of gloves. It is not the suit and the pair that are new, but the clothes and the gloves. Nice. Archdeacon Hare remarks of the use or rather misuse of this word, quote, that stupid vulgarism by which we use the word nice to denote almost every mode of approbation, for almost every variety of quality, and from sheer poverty of thought or fear of saying anything definite, wrap up everything indiscriminately in this characterless domino, speaking at the same breath of a nice cheesecake, a nice tragedy, a nice sermon, a nice day, a nice country, as if a universal deluge of neasery for nice seems originally to have been only in yace, had whelmed the whole island, end quote. Nice is as good a word as any other in its place, but its place is not everywhere. We talk very properly about a nice distinction, a nice discrimination, a nice calculation, a nice point, and about a person's being nice and over nice and the like, but we certainly ought not to talk about Othello's being a nice tragedy, about Salvini's being a nice actor, or New York Bay's being a nice harbor. Footnote. The possessive construction here is in my judgment not imperatively demanded. There is certainly no lack of authority for putting the three substantives in the accusative. The possessive construction seems to me, however, to be preferable. End footnote. Nicely. The very quintessence of Papangé vulgarity is reached when nicely is made to do service for well, in this wise. How do you do? Nicely. How are you? Nicely. No. This word of negation is responded to by nor in sentences like this. Let your meaning be obscure and the music of well-turned sentences will make amends. Whether he is there or no, supply the ellipsis and we have whether he is there or no there. Clearly, the word to use in sentences like this is not no, but not. And yet our best writers sometimes inadvertently use no with whether. Example. But perhaps some people are quite indifferent whether or no it is said, etc. Richard Grant White in words and their uses, page 84. Supply the ellipsis and we have said or no said. In a little book entitled Live and Learn, I find no less than fifty persons were there. No fewer, etc. In correcting one mistake the writer himself makes one. It should be not fewer, etc. If we ask there were fifty persons there were there or were there not the reply clearly would be there were not fewer than fifty. There was no one of them who would not have been proud, etc. should be there was not one of them. Not. The correlative of not when it stands in the first member of a sentence is nor or neither not for thy ivory nor thy gold will I unbind my chain I will not do it, neither shall you. The wrong placing of not often gives rise to an imperfect negation thus John and James were not there means that John and James were not there in company it does not exclude the presence of one of them. The negative should precede in this case neither John nor James was there. Our company was not present as a company but some of us might have been should be no member of our company was present not but only. Errors frequently arise in the use of not but only to understand which we must attend to the force of the whole expression he did not pretend to extirpate French music but only to cultivate and civilize it here the not is obviously misplaced he pretended or professed not to extirpate bane notorious though this word cannot be properly used in any but a bad sense we sometimes see it used instead of noted which may be used in either a good or a bad sense notorious characters are always persons to be shunned whereas noted characters may or may not be persons to be shunned this is the tax a man must pay for his virtues they hold up a torch to his vices and render those frailties notorious in him which would pass without observation in another. Lacan Navas refer to amateur number it is not an uncommon thing for a pronoun in the plural number to be used in connection with an antecedent in the singular at present the following notice may be seen in some of our Broadway omnibuses fifty dollars reward for the conviction of any person caught collecting or keeping fares given to them to deposit in the box should be to him a person may be very nearsighted if they cannot recognize an acquaintance ten feet off should be if he the verb to be is often used in the singular instead of in the plural thus there is several reasons why it would be better say are how many is there say are there is four say are was there many say were no matter how many there was say were a verb should agree in number with its subject and not with its predicate we say for example death is the wages of sin and the wages of sin are death when singular nouns connected by and are preceded by each every or no the verb must be singular we say for example each boy and each girl studies every leaf and every twig and every drop of water teams with life no book and no paper was arranged each being singular a pronoun or verb to agree with it must also be singular thus let them depend each on his own exertions each city has its peculiar privileges everybody has a right to look after his own interest errors are often the result of not repeating the verb thus its significance is as varied as the passions correctly as are the passions the words are as incapable of analysis as the thing signified correctly as is the thing signified End of section 6 Recording by Bill Borst