[375] The learned William B. Fowle strangely imagines all pronouns to be adjectives, belonging to nouns expressed or understood after them; as, “We kings require them (subjects) to obey us (kings).”—­The True English Gram., p. 21. “They grammarians, [i. e.] those grammarians. They is an other spelling of the, and of course means this, that, these, those, as the case may be.”—­Ibid. According to him, then, “them grammarians,” for “those grammarians,” is perfectly good English; and so is “they grammarians,” though the vulgar do not take care to vary this adjective, “as the case may be.”  His notion of subjoining a noun to every pronoun, is a fit counterpart to that of some other grammarians, who imagine an ellipsis of a pronoun after almost every noun.  Thus:  “The personal Relatives, for the most part, are suppressed when the Noun is expressed:  as, Man (he) is the Lord of this lower world.  Woman (she) is the fairest Part of the Creation.  The Palace (it) stands on a Hill.  Men and Women (they) are rational Creatures.”—­British Gram., p. 234; Buchanan’s, 131.  It would have been worth a great deal to some men, to have known what an Ellipsis is; and the man who shall yet make such knowledge common, ought to be forever honoured in the schools.

[376] “An illegitimate and ungrammatical use of these words, either and neither, has lately been creeping into the language, in the application of these terms to a plurality of objects:  as, ’Twenty ruffians broke into the house, but neither of them could be recognized.’  ’Here are fifty pens, you will find that either of them will do.’”—­MATT.  HARRISON, on the English Language, p. 199. “Either and neither, applied to any number more than one of two objects, is a mere solecism, and one of late introduction.”—­Ib., p. 200.  Say, “Either OR neither,” &c.—­G.  B.

[377] Dr. Priestley censures this construction, on the ground, that the word whole is an “attribute of unity,” and therefore improperly added to a plural noun.  But, in fact, this adjective is not necessarily singular, nor is all necessarily plural.  Yet there is a difference between the words:  whole is equivalent to all only when the noun is singular; for then only do entireness and totality coincide.  A man may say, “the whole thing,” when he means, “all the thing;” but he must not call all things, whole things.  In the following example, all is put for whole, and taken substantively; but the expression is a quaint one, because the article and preposition seem needless:  “Which doth encompass and embrace the all of things.”—­The Dial, Vol. i, p. 59.

[378] This is not a mere repetition of the last example cited under Note 14th above; but it is Murray’s interpretation of the text there quoted.  Both forms are faulty, but not in the same way.—­G.  BROWN.