“And the tear that is wip’d with a little address
    May be followed perhaps with a smile.”
        Webster’s American Spelling-Book, p. 78;
          and Murray’s E. Reader, p. 212.

CHAPTER XI—­INTERJECTIONS.

An Interjection is a word that is uttered merely to indicate some strong or sudden emotion of the mind:  as, Oh! alas! ah! poh! pshaw! avaunt! aha! hurrah!

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.—­Of pure interjections but few are admitted into books.  Unimpassioned writings reject this part of speech altogether.  As words or sounds of this kind serve rather to indicate feeling than to express thought, they seldom have any definable signification.  Their use also is so variable, that there can be no very accurate classification of them.  Some significant words, perhaps more properly belonging to other classes, are sometimes ranked with interjections, when uttered with emotion and in an unconnected manner; as, strange! prodigious! indeed! Wells says, “Other parts of speech, used by way of exclamation, are properly regarded as interjections; as, hark! surprising! mercy!”—­School Gram., 1846, p. 110.  This is an evident absurdity; because it directly confounds the classes which it speaks of as being different.  Nor is it right to say, “Other parts of speech are frequently used to perform the office of interjections.”—­Wells, 1850, p. 120.

OBS. 2.—­The word interjection comes to us from the Latin name interjectio, the root of which is the verb interjicio, to throw between, to interject.  Interjections are so called because they are usually thrown in between the parts of discourse, without any syntactical connexion with other words.  Dr. Lowth, in his haste, happened to describe them as a kind of natural sounds “thrown in between the parts of a sentence;” and this strange blunder has been copied into almost every definition that has been given of the Interjection since.  See Murray’s Grammar and others.  Webster’s Dictionary defines it as, “A word thrown in between words connected in construction;” but of all the parts of speech none are less frequently found in this situation.

OBS. 3.—­The following is a fair sample of “Smith’s New Grammar,”—­i.e., of “English Grammar on the Productive System,”—­a new effort of quackery to scarf up with cobwebs the eyes of common sense:  “Q.  When I exclaim, ’Oh!  I have ruined my friend,’ ‘Alas!  I fear for life,’ which words here appear to be thrown in between the sentences, to express passion or feeling?  Ans. Oh!  Alas! Q. What does interjection mean?  Ans. Thrown between.  Q. What name, then, shall we give such words as oh! alas! &c.?  Ans.  INTERJECTIONS.  Q. What, then, are interjections?