The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

The Grammar of English Grammars eBook

Goold Brown
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,149 pages of information about The Grammar of English Grammars.

OBS. 11.—­If we say, “these people,” “these gentry,” “these folk,” we make people, gentry, and folk, not only irregular plurals, but plurals to which there are no correspondent singulars; but by these phrases, we must mean certain individuals, and not more than one people, gentry, or folk.  But these names are sometimes collective nouns singular; and, as such, they may have verbs of either number, according to the sense; and may also form regular plurals, as peoples, and folks; though we seldom, if ever, speak of gentries; and folks is now often irregularly applied to persons, as if one person were a folk.  So troops is sometimes irregularly, if not improperly, put for soldiers, as if a soldier were a troop; as, “While those gallant troops, by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left to perish.”—­Junius, p. 147.  In Genesis, xxvii, 29th, we read, “Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee.”  But, according to the Vulgate, it ought to be, “Let peoples serve thee, and nations bow down to thee;” according to the Septuagint, “Let nations serve thee, and rulers bow down to thee.”  Among Murray’s “instances of false syntax,” we find the text, “This people draweth near to me with their mouth,” &c.—­Octavo Gram., Vol. ii, p. 49.  This is corrected in his Key, thus:  “These people draw near to me with their mouth.”—­Ib., ii, 185.  The Bible has it:  “This people draw near me with their mouth.”—­Isaiah, xxix, 13.  And again:  “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth.,”—­Matt., xv, 8.  Dr. Priestley thought it ought to be, “This people draws nigh unto me with their mouths.”—­Priestley’s Gram., p. 63.  The second evangelist omits some words:  “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”—­Mark, vii, 6.  In my opinion, the plural verb is here to be preferred; because the pronoun their is plural, and the worship spoken of was a personal rather than a national act.  Yet the adjective this must be retained, if the text specify the Jews as a people.  As to the words mouth and heart, they are to be understood figuratively of speech and love; and I agree not with Priestley, that the plural number must necessarily be used.  See Note 4th to Rule 4th.

OBS. 12.—­In making an assertion concerning a number or quantity with some indefinite excess or allowance, we seem sometimes to take for the subject of the verb what is really the object of a preposition; as, “In a sermon, there may be from three to five, or six heads.”—­Blair’s Rhet., p. 313.  “In those of Germany, there are from eight to twelve professors.”—­ Dwight, Lit.  Convention, p. 138.  “About a million and a half was subscribed in a few

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The Grammar of English Grammars from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.