The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (read books for money TXT) 📖

speaks of not varying or not changing the termination of the verb, most absurdly means by it, that the verb is inflected, just as it is in the indicative or the potential mood; and when he speaks of changes or variations of termination, he means, that the verb remains the same as in the first person singular! For example: "The second person singular of the imperfect tense in the subjunctive mood, is also very frequently varied in its termination: as, 'If thou loved him truly, thou wouldst obey him.'"—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 209. "The auxiliaries of the potential mood, when applied to the subjunctive, do not change the termination of the second person singular; as, 'If thou mayst or canst go.'"—Ib., p. 210. "Some authors think, that the termination of these auxiliaries should be varied: as, I advise thee, that thou may beware."—Ib., p. 210. "When the circumstances of contingency and futurity concur, it is proper to vary the terminations of the second and third persons singular."—Ib., 210. "It may be considered as a rule, that the changes of termination are necessary, when these two circumstances concur."—Ib., p. 207. "It may be considered as a rule, that no changes of termination are necessary, when these two circumstances concur."—Ingersoll's Gram., p. 264. Now Murray and Ingersoll here mean precisely the same thing! Whose fault is that? If Murray's, he has committed many such. But, in this matter, he is contradicted not only by Ingersoll, but, on one occasion, by himself. For he declares it to be an opinion in which he concurs. "That the definition and nature of the subjunctive mood, have no reference to change of termination."—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 211. And yet, amidst his strange blunders, he seems to have ascribed the meaning which a verb has in this mood, to the inflections which it receives in the indicative: saying. "That part of the verb which grammarians call the present tense of the subjunctive mood, has a future signification. This is effected by varying the terminations of the second and third persons singular of the indicative!"—Ib., p. 207. But the absurdity which he really means to teach, is, that the subjunctive mood is derived from the indicative,—the primitive or radical verb, from it's derivatives or branches!

[262] Wert is sometimes used in lieu of wast; and, in such instances, both by authority and by analogy, it appears to belong here, if anywhere. See OBS. 2d and 3d, below.

[263] Some grammarians, regardless of the general usage of authors, prefer was to were in the singular number of this tense of the subjunctive mood. In the following remark, the tense is named "present" and this preference is urged with some critical extravagance: "Was, though the past tense of the indicative mood, expresses the present of the hypothetical; as, 'I wish that I was well.' The use of this hypothetical form of the subjunctive mood, has given rise to a form of expression wholly unwarranted by the rules of grammar. When the verb was is to be used in the present tense singular, in this form of the subjunctive mood, the ear is often pained with a plural were, as, 'Were I your master'—'Were he compelled to do it,' &c. This has become so common that some of the best grammars of the language furnish authority for the barbarism, and even in the second person supply wert, as a convenient accompaniment. If such a conjugation is admitted, we may expect to see Shakspeare's 'thou beest' in full use."—Chandler's Gram., Ed. of 1821, p. 55. In "Chandler's Common School Grammar," of 1847, the language of this paragraph is somewhat softened, but the substance is still retained. See the latter work, p. 80.

[264] "If I were, If thou were. If he were."—Harrison's Gram., p. 31. "If, or though, I were loved. If, or though, thou were, or wert loved. If, or though, he were loved."—Bicknell's Gram., Part i, p. 69. "If, though, &c. I were burned, thou were burned or you were burned, he were burned."—Buchanan's Gram., p. 53. "Though thou were. Some say, 'though thou wert.'"—Mackintosh's Gram., p. 178. "If or though I were. If or though thou were. If or though he were."—St. Quentin's General Gram., p. 86. "If I was, Thou wast, or You was or were, He was. Or thus: If I were, Thou wert, or you was or were, He were."—Webster's Philosophical Gram., p. 95; Improved Gram., p. 64. "PRESENT TENSE. Before, &c. I be; thou beest, or you be; he, she, or it, be: We, you or ye, they, be. PAST TENSE. Before, &c. I were; thou wert, or you were; he, she, or it, were; We, you or ye, they, were."—WHITE, on the English Verb, p. 52.

[265] The text in Acts, xxii, 20th, "I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death," ought rather to be, "I also stood by, and consented to his death;" but the present reading is, thus far, a literal version from the Greek, though the verb "kept," that follows, is not. Montanus renders it literally: "Et ipse eram astans, et consentiens interemptioni ejus, et custodiens vestimenta interficientium illum." Beza makes it better Latin thus: "Ego quoque adstabam, et una assentiebar cædi ipsius, et custodiebam pallia eorum qui interimebant eum." Other examples of a questionable or improper use of the progressive form may occasionally be found in good authors; as, "A promising boy of six years of age, was missing by his parents."—Whittier, Stranger in Lowell, p. 100. Missing, wanting, and willing, after the verb to be, are commonly reckoned participial adjectives; but here "was missing" is made a passive verb, equivalent to was missed, which, perhaps, would better express the meaning. To miss, to perceive the absence of, is such an act of the mind, as seems unsuited to the compound form, to be missing; and, if we cannot say, "The mother was missing her son," I think we ought not to use the same form passively, as above.

[266] Some grammarians, contrary to the common opinion, suppose the verbs here spoken of, to have, not a passive, but a neuter signification. Thus, Joseph Guy, Jun., of London: "Active verbs often take a neuter sense; as, A house is building; here, is building is used in a neuter signification, because it has no object after it. By this rule are explained such sentences as, Application is wanting; The grammar is printing; The lottery is drawing; It is flying, &c."—Guy's English Gram., p. 21. "Neuter," here, as in many other places, is meant to include the active-intransitives. "Is flying" is of this class; and "is wanting," corresponding to the Latin caret, appears to be neuter; hut the rest seem rather to be passives. Tried, however, by the usual criterion,—the naming of the "agent" which, it is said, "a verb passive necessarily implies,"—what may at first seem progressive passives, may not always be found such. "Most verbs signifying action" says Dr. Johnson, "may likewise signify condition, or habit, and become neuters, [i. e. active-intransitives;] as I love, I am in love; I strike, I am now striking."—Gram. before Quarto Dict., p. 7. So sell, form, make, and many others, usually transitive, have sometimes an active-intransitive sense which nearly approaches the passive, and of which are selling, is forming, are making, and the like, may be only equivalent expressions. For example: "It is cold, and ice forms rapidly—is forming rapidly—or is formed rapidly."—Here, with little difference of meaning, is the appearance of both voices, the Active and the Passive; while "is forming," which some will have for an example of "the Middle voice," may be referred to either. If the following passive construction is right, is wanting or are wanting may be a verb of three or four different sorts: "Reflections that may drive away despair, cannot be wanting by him, who considers," &c.—Johnson's Rambler, No. 129: Wright's Gram., p. 196.

[267] Dr. Bullions, in his grammar of 1849, says, "Nobody would think of saying, 'He is being loved'—'This result is being desired.'"—Analyt. and Pract. Gram., p. 237. But, according to J. W. Wright, whose superiority in grammar has sixty-two titled vouchers, this unheard-of barbarism is, for the present passive, precisely and solely what one ought to say! Nor is it, in fact, any more barbarous, or more foreign from usage, than the spurious example which the Doctor himself takes for a model in the active voice: "I am loving. Thou art loving, &c; I have been loving, Thou hast been loving, &c."—A. and P. Gr., p. 92. So: "James is loving me."—Ib., p 235.

[268] "The predicate in the form, 'The house is being built,' would be, according to our view, 'BEING BEING built,' which is manifestly an absurd tautology."—Mulligan's Gram., 1852, p. 151.

[269] "Suppose a criminal to be enduring the operation of binding:—Shall we say, with Mr. Murray,—'The criminal is binding?' If so, HE MUST BE BINDING SOMETHING,—a circumstance, in effect, quite opposed to the fact presented. Shall we then say, as he does, in the present tense conjugation of his passive verb,—'The criminal is bound?' If so, the action of binding, which the criminal is suffering, will be represented as completed, —a position which the action its self will palpably deny." See Wright's Phil. Gram., p. 102. It is folly for a man to puzzle himself or others thus, with fictitious examples, imagined on purpose to make good usage seem wrong. There is bad grammar enough, for all useful purposes, in the actual writings of valued authors; but who can show, by any proofs, that the English language, as heretofore written, is so miserably inadequate to our wants, that we need use the strange neologism, "The criminal is being bound," or any thing similar?

[270] It is a very strange event in the history of English grammar, that such a controversy as this should have arisen; but a stranger one still, that, after all that has been said, more argument is needed. Some men, who hope to be valued as scholars, yet stickle for an odd phrase, which critics have denounced as follows: "But the history of the language scarcely affords a parallel to the innovation, at once unphilosophical and hypercritical, pedantic and illiterate, which has lately appeared in the excruciating refinement 'is being' and its unmerciful variations. We hope, and indeed believe, that it has not received the sanction of any grammar adopted in our popular education, as it certainly never will of any writer of just pretensions to scholarship."—The True Sun. N. Y., April 16, 1846.

[271] Education is a work of continuance, yet completed, like many others, as fast as it goes on. It is not, like the act of loving or hating, so complete at the first moment as not to admit the progressive form of the verb; for one may say of a lad, "I am educating him for the law;" and possibly, "He is educating for the law;" though not so well as, "He is to be educated for the law." But, to suppose that "is educated" or "are educated" implies unnecessarily a cessation of the educating is a mistake. That conception is right, only when educated is taken adjectively. The phrase, "those who are educated in our seminaries," hardly includes such as have been educated there in times past: much less does it apply to these exclusively, as some seem to think. "Being," as inserted by Southey, is therefore quite needless: so it is often, in this new phraseology, the best correction being its mere omission.

[272] Worcester has also this citation: "The Eclectic Review remarks, 'That a need of this phrase, or an equivalent one, is felt, is sufficiently proved by the extent to which it is used by educated persons and respectable writers.'"—Gram. before Dict., p. xlvi. Sundry phrases, equivalent in sense to this new voice, have long been in use, and are, of course, still needed; something from among them being always, by every accurate writer, still preferred. But this awkward innovation, use it who will, can no more be justified by a plea of "need," than can every other hackneyed solecism extant. Even the Archbishop, if quoted right by Worcester, has descended to "uncouth English," without either necessity or propriety, having thereby only misexpounded a very common Greek word—a "perfect or pluperfect" participle, which means "beaten, struck, or having been beaten"—G. Brown.

[273] Wells has also the following citations, which most probably accord with his own opinions, though the first is rather extravagant: "The propriety of these imperfect passive tenses has been doubted by almost all our grammarians; though I believe but few of them have written many pages without condescending to make use of them. Dr. Beattie says, 'One of the greatest defects of the English tongue, with regard to the verb, seems to be the want of an imperfect passive participle.' And yet he uses the imperfect participle in a passive sense as often as most writers."—Pickbourn's Dissertation on the English Verb.

"Several other expressions of this sort now and