The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

or wrong. "Lo, the poor Indian!" is in Latin, "Ecce pauper Indus!" or, "Ecce pauperem Indum!" This use of either the nominative or the accusative after ecce, if it proves any thing concerning the case of the word Indian, proves it doubtful. Some, it seems, pronounce it an objective. Some, like Murray, say nothing about it. Following the analogy of our own language, I refer it to the nominative absolute, because there is nothing to determine it to be otherwise. In the examples. "Heu me miserum! Ah wretch that I am!"—(Grant's Latin Gram., p. 263.) and "Miser ego homo! O wretched man that I am!"—(Rom., vii, 24,) if the word that is a relative pronoun, as I incline to think it is, the case of the nouns wretch and man does not depend on any other words, either expressed or implied. They are therefore nominatives absolute, according to Rule 8th, though the Latin words may be most properly explained on the principle of ellipsis.

OBS. 12.—Of some impenetrable blockhead, Horace, telling how himself was vexed, says: "O te, Bollane, cerebri Felicem! aiebam tacitus."—Lib. i, Sat. ix, 11. Literally: "O thee, Bollanus, happy of brain! said I to myself." That is, "O! I envy thee," &c. This shows that O does not "require the nominative case of the second person" after it, at least, in Latin. Neither does oh or ah: for, if a governing word be suggested, the objective may be proper; as, "Whom did he injure? Ah! thee, my boy?"—or even the possessive; as, "Whose sobs do I hear? Oh! thine, my child?" Kirkham tells us truly, (Gram., p. 126,) that the exclamation "O my" is frequently heard in conversation. These last resemble Lucan's use of the genitive, with an ellipsis of the governing noun: "O miseræ sortis!" i.e., "O [men] of miserable lot!" In short, all the Latin cases as well as all the English, may possibly occur after one or other of the interjections. I have instanced all but the ablative, and the following is literally an example of that, though the word quanto is construed adverbially: "Ah, quanto satius est!"—Ter. And., ii, 1. "Ah, how much better it is!" I have also shown, by good authorities, that the nominative of the first person, both in English and in Latin, may be properly used after those interjections which have been supposed to require or govern the objective. But how far is analogy alone a justification? Is "O thee" good English, because "O te" is good Latin? No: nor is it bad for the reason which our grammarians assign, but because our best writers never use it, and because O is more properly the sign of the vocative. The literal version above should therefore be changed; as, "O Bollanus, thou happy numskull! said I to myself."

OBS. 13—Allen Fisk, "author of Adam's Latin Grammar Simplified," and of "Murray's English Grammar Simplified," sets down for "False Syntax" not only that hackneyed example, "Oh! happy we," &c., but, "O! You, who love iniquity," and, "Ah! you, who hate the light."—Fisk's E. Gram., p. 144. But, to imagine that either you or we is wrong here, is certainly no sing of a great linguist; and his punctuation is very inconsistent both with his own rule of syntax and with common practice. An interjection set off by a comma or an exclamation point, is of course put absolute singly, or by itself. If it is to be read as being put absolute with something else, the separation is improper. One might just as well divide a preposition from its object, as an interjection from the case which it is supposed to govern. Yet we find here not only such a division as Murray sometimes improperly adopted, but in one instance a total separation, with a capital following; as, "O! You, who love iniquity," for, "O you who love iniquity!" or "O ye," &c. If a point be here set between the two pronouns, the speaker accuses all his hearers of loving iniquity; if this point be removed, he addresses only such as do love it. But an interjection and a pronoun, each put absolute singly, one after the other, seem to me not to constitute a very natural exclamation. The last example above should therefore be, "Ah! you hate the light." The first should be written, "O happy we!"

OBS. 14.—In other grammars, too, there are many instances of some of the errors here pointed out. R. C. Smith knows no difference between O and oh; takes "Oh! happy us" to be accurate English; sees no impropriety in separating interjections from the pronouns which he supposes them to "govern;" writes the same examples variously, even on the same page; inserts or omits commas or exclamation points at random; yet makes the latter the means by which interjections are to be known! See his New Gram., pp. 40, 96 and 134. Kirkham, who lays claim to "a new system of punctuation," and also stoutly asserts the governing power of interjections, writes, and rewrites, and finally stereotypes, in one part of his book. "Ah me! Oh thou! O my country!" and in an other, "Ah! me; Oh! thou; O! virtue." See Obs. 3d and Obs. 8th above. From such hands, any thing "new" should be received with caution: this last specimen of his scholarship has more errors than words.

OBS. 15.—Some few of our interjections seem to admit of a connexion with other words by means of a preposition or the conjunction that as, "O to forget her!"—Young. "O for that warning voice!"—Milton. "O that they were wise!"—Deut., xxxii, 29. "O that my people had hearkened unto me!"—Ps., lxxxi, 13, "Alas for Sicily!"—Cowper. "O for a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish!"—Id. "Hurrah for Jackson!"—Newspaper. "A bawd, sir, fy upon him!"—SHAK.: Joh. Dict. "And fy on fortune, mine avowed foe!"—SPENCER: ib. This connexion, however, even if we parse all the words just as they stand, does not give to the interjection itself any dependent construction. It appears indeed to refute Jamieson's assertion, that, "The interjection is totally unconnected with every other word in a sentence;" but I did not quote this passage, with any averment of its accuracy; and, certainly, many nouns which are put absolute themselves, have in like manner a connexion with words that are not put absolute: as, "O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah."—Ps., lxxxiv, 8. But if any will suppose, that in the foregoing examples something else than the interjection must be the antecedent term to the preposition or the conjunction, they may consider the expressions elliptical: though it must be confessed, that much of their vivacity will be lost, when the supposed ellipses are supplied: as, "O! I desire to forget her."—"O! how I long for that warning voice!"—"O! how I wish that they were wise!"—"Alas! I wail for Sicily."—"Hurrah! I shout for Jackson."—"Fy! cry out upon him." Lindley Murray has one example of this kind, and if his punctuation of it is not bad in all his editions, there must be an ellipsis in the expression: "O! for better times."—Octavo Gram., ii, 6; Duodecimo Exercises, p. 10. He also writes it thus: "O. for better times."—Octavo Gram., i, 120; Ingersoll's Gram., p. 47. According to common usage, it should be, "O for better times!"

OBS. 16.—The interjection may be placed at the beginning or the end of a simple sentence, and sometimes between its less intimate parts; but this part of speech is seldom, if ever, allowed to interrupt the connexion of any words which are closely united in sense. Murray's definition of an interjection, as I have elsewhere shown, is faulty, and directly contradicted by his example: "O virtue! how amiable thou art!"—Octavo Gram., i, 28 and 128; ii. 2. This was a favourite sentence with Murray, and he appears to have written it uniformly in this fashion; which, undoubtedly, is altogether right, except that the word "virtue" should have had a capital Vee, because the quality is here personified.

OBS. 17.—Misled by the false notion, that the term interjection is appropriate only to what is "thrown in between the parts of a sentence," and perceiving that this is in fact but rarely the situation of this part of speech, a recent critic, (to whom I should owe some acknowledgements, if he were not wrong in every thing in which he charges me with error,) not only denounces this name as "barbarous," preferring Webster's loose term, "exclamation;" but avers, that, "The words called interjection should never be so used—should always stand alone; as, 'Oh! virtue, how amiable thou art.' 'Oh? Absalom, my son.' G. Brown," continues he, "drags one into the middle of a sentence, where it never belonged; thus, 'This enterprise, alas! will never compensate us for the trouble and expense with which it has been attended.' If G. B. meant the enterprize of studying grammar, in the old theories, his sentiment is very appropriate; but his alas! he should have known enough to have put into the right place:—before the sentence representing the fact that excites the emotion expressed by alas! See on the Chart part 3, of RULE XVII. An exclamation must always precede the phrase or sentence describing the fact that excites the emotion to be expressed by the exclamation; as: Alas! I have alienated my friend! Oh! Glorious hope of bliss secure!"—Oliver B. Peirce's Gram., p. 375. "O Glorious hope of bliss secure!"—Ib., p. 184. "O glorious hope!"—Ib., p. 304.

OBS. 18.—I see no reason to believe, that the class of words which have always, and almost universally, been called interjections, can ever be more conveniently explained under any other name; and, as for the term exclamation, which is preferred also by Cutler, Felton, Spencer, and S. W. Clark, it appears to me much less suitable than the old one, because it is less specific. Any words uttered loudly in the same breath, are an exclamation. This name therefore is too general; it includes other parts of speech than interjections; and it was but a foolish whim in Dr. Webster, to prefer it in his dictionaries. When David "cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!" [442] he uttered two exclamations, but they included all his words. He did not, like my critic above, set off his first word with an interrogation point, or any other point. But, says Peirce, "These words are used in exclaiming, and are what all know them to be, exclamations; as I call them. May I not call them what they are?"—Ibid. Yes, truly. But to exclaim is to cry out, and consequently every outcry is an exclamation; though there are two chances to one, that no interjection at all be used by the bawler. As good an argument, or better, may be framed against every one of this gentleman's professed improvements in grammar; and as for his punctuation and orthography, any reader may be presumed capable of seeing that they are not fit to be proposed as models.

OBS. 19.—I like my position of the word "alas" better than that which Peirce supposes to be its only right place; and, certainly, his rule for the location of words of this sort, as well as his notion that they must stand alone, is as false, as it is new. The obvious misstatement of Lowth, Adam, Gould, Murray, Churchill, Alger, Smith, Guy, Ingersoll, and others, that, "Interjections are words thrown in between the parts of a sentence," I had not only excluded from my grammars, but expressly censured in them. It was not, therefore, to prop any error of the old theorists, that I happened to set one interjection "where" according to this new oracle, "it never belonged." And if any body but he has been practically misled by their mistake, it is not I, but more probably some of the following authors, here cited for his refutation: "I fear, alas! for my life."—Fisk's Gram., p. 89. "I have been occupied, alas! with trifles."—Murray's Gr., Ex. for Parsing, p. 5; Guy's, p. 56. "We eagerly pursue pleasure, but, alas! we often mistake the road."—Smith's New Gram., p. 40, "To-morrow, alas! thou mayest be comfortless!"—Wright's Gram., p. 35. "Time flies, O! how swiftly."—Murray's Gram., i, 226. "My friend, alas! is dead."—J. Flint's Gram., p. 21. "But John, alas! he is very idle."—Merchant's Gram., p. 22. "For pale and wan he was, alas the while!"—SPENSER: Joh. Dict. "But yet, alas! O but yet, alas! our haps be but hard haps."—SYDNEY: ib. "Nay, (what's incredible,) alack! I hardly hear a woman's clack."—SWIFT: ib. "Thus life is spent (oh fie upon't!) In being touch'd, and crying—Don't!"—Cowper, i, 231. "For whom, alas! dost thou prepare The sweets that I was wont to share"—Id., i, 203. "But here, alas! the difference lies."—Id., i. 100. "Their names, alas! in vain reproach an age," &c.—Id., i, 88. "What nature, alas! has denied," &c.—Id., i, 235. "A. Hail Sternhold, then;