OBS. 7.—­An active-intransitive or a neuter participle in ing, when governed by a preposition, is often followed by a noun or a pronoun the case of which depends not on the preposition, but on the case which goes before.  Example:  “The Jews were in a particular manner ridiculed for being a credulous people.”—­Addison’s Evidences, p. 28.  Here people is in the nominative case, agreeing with Jews.  Again:  “The learned pagans ridiculed the Jews for being a credulous people.”  Here people is in the objective case, because the preceding noun Jews is so.  In both instances the preposition for governs the participle being, and nothing else.  “The atrocious crime of being a young man, I shall neither attempt to palliate or deny.”—­PITT:  Bullions’s E. Gram., p. 82; S.  S. Greene’s, 174.  Sanborn has this text, with “nor” for “or.”—­Analytical Gram., p. 190.  This example has been erroneously cited, as one in which the case of the noun after the participle is not determined by its relation to any other word.  Sanborn absurdly supposes it to be “in the nominative independent.”  Bullions as strangely tells us, “it may correctly be called the objective indefinite”—­like me in the following example:  “He was not sure of its being me.”—­Bullions’s E. Gram., p. 82.  This latter text I take to be bad English.  It should be, “He was not sure of it as being me;” or, “He was not sure that it was I." But, in the text above, there is an evident transposition.  The syntactical order is this:  “I shall neither deny nor attempt to palliate the atrocious crime of being a young man.”  The words man and I refer to the same person, and are therefore in the same case, according to the rule which I have given above.

OBS. 8.—­S.  S. Greene, in his late Grammar, improperly denominates this case after the participle being, “the predicate-nominative,” and imagines that it necessarily remains a nominative even when the possessive case precedes the participle.  If he were right in this, there would be an important exception to Rule 6th above.  But so singularly absurd is his doctrine about “abridged predicates,” that in general the abridging shows an increase of syllables, and often a conversion of good English into bad.  For example:  “It [the predicate] remains unchanged in the nominative, when, with the participle of the copula, it becomes a verbal noun, limited by the possessive case of the subject; as, ’That he was a foreigner prevented his election,’=’His being a foreigner prevented his election.’”—­Greene’s Analysis, p. 169.  Here the number of syllables is unaltered; but foreigner is very improperly called “a verbal noun,” and an example