[527] There is, in most English dictionaries, a contracted form of this phrase, written prithee, or I prithee; but Dr. Johnson censures it as “a familiar corruption, which some writers have injudiciously used;” and, as the abbreviation amounted to nothing but the slurring of one vowel sound into an other, it has now, I think, very deservedly become obsolete.—­G.  BROWN.

[528] This is the doctrine of Murray, and his hundred copyists; but it is by no means generally true.  It is true of adverbs, only when they are connected by conjunctions; and seldom applies to two words, unless the conjunction which may be said to connect them, be suppressed and understood.—­G.  BROWN.

[529] Example:  “Imperfect articulation comes not so much from bad organs, as from the abuse of good ones.”—­Porter’s Analysis.  Here ones represents organs, and prevents unpleasant repetition.—­G.  BROWN.

[530] From the force of habit, or to prevent the possibility of a false pronunciation, these ocular contractions are still sometimes carefully made in printing poetry; but they are not very important, and some modern authors, or their printers, disregard them altogether.  In correcting short poetical examples, I shall in general take no particular pains to distinguish them from prose.  All needful contractions however will be preserved, and sometimes also a capital letter, to show where the author commenced a line.

[531] The word “imperfect” is not really necessary here; for the declaration is true of any phrase, as this name is commonly applied.—­G.  BROWN.

[532] A part of speech is a sort of words, and not one word only.  We cannot say, that every pronoun, or every verb, is a part of speech, because the parts of speech are only ten.  But every pronoun, verb, or other word, is a word; and, if we will refer to this genus, there is no difficulty in defining all the parts of speech in the singular, with an or a:  as, “A pronoun is a word put for a noun.”  Murray and others say, “An Adverb is a part of speech,” &c., “A Conjunction is a part of speech,” &c., which is the same as to say, “One adverb is a sort of words,” &c.  This is a palpable absurdity.—­G.  BROWN.

[533] The propriety of this conjunction, “nor,” is somewhat questionable:  the reading in both the Vulgate and the Septuagint is—­“they, and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters.”

[534] All our lexicographers, and all accurate authors, spell this word with an o; but the gentleman who has furnished us with the last set of new terms for the science of grammar, writes it with an e, and applies it to the verb and the participle.  With him, every verb or participle is an “asserter;” except when he forgets his creed, as he did in writing the preceding example about certain “verbs.”  As he changes the names of all the parts of speech, and denounces the entire technology of grammar, perhaps his innovation would have been sufficiently broad, had he for THE VERB, the most important class of all, adopted some name which he knew how to spell.—­G.  B.