The English grammar of William Cobbett

William Cobbett

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• English language
• Grammar

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• Publié par: les_archives_du_savoir
• Nombre de lectures: 36
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2008 with funding from
Microsoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/englishgrammarofOOcobbrichA
GRAMMAR
OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE,— — —
THE
GRAMMARENGLISH
OF
WILLIAM COBBETT.
CAREFULLY REVISED AND ANNOTATED
BY ALFRED AYRES,
"AUTHOR OF "THE ORTHOEPIST," THE VERBALIST," ETC.
The only amusinggrammar in the world. Henry Lvtton Bulwer.
Interesting as a story-book. Hazlitt.
I know it well, and have read it with great admiration. Richard
Grant White.
YORK AND LONDONNEW
AND COMPANYD. APPLETON
1919Copyright, by1883,
APPLETON AND COMPANYD.
Copyright, by1911,
TREMAINFRANK E.
Printed in the United States of AmericaQ.G.-
EDITOR'S NOTE.
Cobbett's Grammar is probably the most read-
For the purposes of self-able grammar ever written.
education it is unrivaled. Persons that studied gram-
when at school and failed to comprehend itsmar
principles—and there are many such—as well as those
that never have studied grammar at all, will find the
ofbook specially suited to their needs. Any one
average intelligence that will give it a careful reading
knowledgewill be rewarded with at least a tolerable
of the subject, as nothing could be more simple or
more lucid than its expositions.
The first edition of the book was published in Lon-
don, in December, 1818—sixty-four years ago. In
Topreparing this edition, I have called attention—1.
the points in which Cobbett's teachings differ from
what is now considered the best usage ; 2. To the
few errors of diction found in its pages and, To
; 3. a
JT7.o<v~v*y/m6 EDITOR'S NOTE.
better—because discriminating—use of the relative
pronouns than we find either here, or almost any-
modern literature—better thanwhere else in I myself,
until very recently, have observed.
pronominal corrections areThese made in accord-
ance with the fact that WHO and WHICH are prop-
the co-ordinating relativepronouns, anderly that
that isproperly the restrictive relative pronoun.
Whenever a clause restricts, limits, defines, qualifies
the antecedent, i. e., whenever it is adjectival—explana-
— shouldtory in its functions it be introduced with the
relative pronoun THAT, and not with WHICH nor with
whom. The indiscriminate use of the rela-who or
tives sometimes makes it impossible to be certain what
writer would say.the
"Let us take one or two simple examples : I met
watchman who showed me the way." Does thisthe
themean, I met the watchman and he showed me
way, or does it mean that of several watchmen I met
methe one that—on some previous occasion—showed
the way? It should mean the former, and would
mean that and nothing else, if we discriminated in the
and that. Again, the familiar line fromuse of who
"Goldsmith, And fools, who came to scoff, remained
to pray." Does this mean, And the fools that came,
though to pray, or doesthey came to scoff, remained