“Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch,
    Transform themselves so strangely as the rich?”
        —­Pope, Ep. i, l. 152.

OBS. 4.—­From the observations and examples above, it may be perceived, that whenever there is a difference of person, number, or gender, in antecedents connected disjunctively, there is an inherent difficulty respecting the form of the pronoun personal.  The best mode of meeting this inconvenience, or of avoiding it by a change of the phraseology, may be different on different occasions.  The disjunctive connexion of explicit pronouns is the most correct, but it savours too much of legal precision and wordiness to be always eligible.  Commonly an ingenious mind may invent some better expression, and yet avoid any syntactical anomaly.  In Latin, when nouns are connected by the conjunctions which correspond to or or nor, the pronoun or verb is so often made plural, that no such principle as that of the foregoing Rule, or of Rule 17th, is taught by the common grammars of that language.  How such usage can be logically right, however, it is difficult to imagine.  Lowth, Murray, Webster, and most other English grammarians, teach, that, “The conjunction disjunctive has an effect contrary to that of the copulative; and, as the verb, noun, or pronoun, is referred to the preceding terms taken separately, it must be in the singular number.”—­Lowth’s Gram., p. 75; L.  Murray’s, 151; Churchill’s, 142; W.  Allen’s, 133; Lennie’s, 83; and many others.  If there is any allowable exception to this principle, it is for the adoption of the plural when the concord cannot be made by any one pronoun singular; as, “If I value my friend’s wife or son upon account of their connexion with him.”—­Kames, El. of Crit., i, 73.  “Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation.”—­Levit., x, 8.  These examples, though they do not accord with the preceding rule, seem not to be susceptible of any change for the better.  There are also some other modes of expression, in which nouns that are connected disjunctively, may afterwards be represented together; as “Foppery is a sort of folly much more contagious THAN pedantry; but as they result alike from affectation, they deserve alike to be proscribed.”—­Campbell’s Rhet., p. 217.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XIII.

PRONOUNS WITH ANTECEDENTS CONNECTED BY OR OR NOR.

“Neither prelate nor priest can give their flocks any decisive evidence that you are lawful pastors.”—­Dr. Brownlee.

[FORMULE.—­Not proper, because the pronoun their is of the plural number, and does not correctly represent its two antecedents prelate and priest, which are connected by nor, and taken disjunctively.  But, according to Rule 13th, “When a pronoun has two or more antecedents connected by or or nor, it must agree with them singly, and not as if taken together.”  Therefore, their should be his; thus, “Neither prelate nor priest can give his flocks any decisive evidence that you are lawful pastors.”]