CHAPTER VIII. OF THE GRAMMATICAL PROPERTIES OF STYLE. § 284. THE GRAMMATICAL PROPERTIES of style may be distributed into three species, according as they respect the forms of words, their connection, or their meaning. The departments of grammar which respectively treat of these several species are Etymology, Syntax, and Lexicography. Etymology presides over the words introduced into the language and the forms which they take; syntax, over the arrangement and relations of words; and lexicography assigns to them their meaning. The several species. of the grammatical properties of style are founded, accordingly, on these departments of grammar, and derive from them their regulative principles. Inasmuch as these grammatical principles are fixed and imperative, the observance of them in style is indispensable. Hence it is more convenient to consider these properties in their negative aspect; and to exhibit them not in the forms in which, as observed, they impart beauty to discourse, but in which, as they are disregarded, the discourse becomes thereby faulty. Before illustrating the several faults against grammatical purity in style, it becomes necessary to ascertain the standard of purity. Numerous and weighty authorities determine this to be good use. The language of Horace is : "Usus Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi." Quintilian only says use is the most certain rule: "Certissima regula in consuetudine." Dr. Campbell is earnest in maintaining that use is necessarily the sole criterion. It has been before observed, § 246, that grammatical science is either abstract or historical. The laws of thought, on the one hand, and the laws of articulate sounds, on the other, impose certain necessary conditions on the formation of language. These laws being given, it may be determined beforehand, to a certain extent, what must be the properties of language, or, in other words, the principles of grammar. No use can be characterized as good that violates these universal principles of language. But, again, there is such a thing as grammatical science, regarded as historical, and founded on inductive grounds. There are in every language certain general laws which control and regulate its development. There are general principles of etymology and syntax, violations of which must be regarded as faults. It is true that sometimes the different principles that preside over the formation of language come in collision with one another, and thus grammatical rules frequently have exceptions. The principles of euphony, thus, frequently, occasion deviations from the common laws of derivation. So, likewise, more purely rhetorical or logical principles modify the operation of proper grammatical rules. Such exceptions are not, however, properly violations of the laws of language. Now no 66 use can be allowed to transgress these general principles. If grammatical monstrosities by any mishap exist, a correct taste will shun them, as it does physical deformities in the arts of design. Back then of use we have both the abstract principles of universal language, and also the inductive principles of particular languages, as guides and criteria of grammatical purity. By these principles use itself must be tried. Good use is, therefore, only a proximate and presumptive test of purity. While generally its decisions are authoritative, they admit, in their nature, of being questioned, and must themselves submit to higher authority. The expressions "Xerxes his host" and "had wore" have had all the prescribed characteristics of good use, "reputable, national, and present." No good writer would now admit them into elevated discourse. We may accordingly lay down the principle which regulates this matter as it is expressed in the following section. § 285. THE STANDARD OF GRAMMATICAL PURITY is to be found proximately in good use; but ultimately in the fixed principles of grammatical science, that is, in the principles of etymology, syntax, and lexicography. $286. That use alone is to be regarded as good which possesses the following characteristics, namely, that it is national, as opposed to provincial and technical; reputable, or sanctioned by the best authors; and present, as opposed to what is obsolete. § 287. Offenses against grammatical purity may be distributed in reference to their occasions into the following species, namely, 1. Archaism, or obsolete use; 2. Provincialism, or the use of what is not national, or is confined to a district or province; 3. Idiotism, or the use which is confined to an individual; 4. Technicality, or use peculiar to a science, a pursuit, a sect, or trade; 5. Alienism, or use derived from a foreign language. It is to be remarked that each of these species includes offenses against any of the departments of grammar, whether etymology, syntax, or lexicography. An archaism, thus, may either be a barbarism, solecism, or impropriety. § 288. A fault in respect to the settled forms of words, that is, an offense against the etymology of a language, is denominated a BARBARISM. § 289. A barbarism may lie in the use of a radical word not sanctioned by the etymology of a language ; or in an unauthorized mode of deriving, inflecting, or compounding words. The English language admits more freely the introduction. of new radical words than most other languages. Words of Latin or Greek origin it receives without hesitancy, and subjects them in the process of naturalizing to but trifling modifications. So common has this adulteration of the language been, that a barbarism of this species is hardly reckoned a fault, and the preservation of a pure Anglo-Saxon style has consequently become a positive excellence. The following are barbarisms in respect to the use of WORDS NOT AUTHORIZED: Approbate, eventuate, heft, jeopardize, missionate, preventative, reluctate, repetitious, peek for peep, numerosity, finity, effluxion, inchoation, anon, erewhile, whenas, peradventure, obligate, memorize, bating, pending, hearken, excogitate, markedly, resurrect. * Barbarisms in INFLECTION: Stricken for struck, het for heated, pled for pleaded, lit for lighted, proven † for proved, had n't ought for ought not, had rather have gone for would rather have gone, have drank for have drunk, have began, invinciblest, successfulest. Barbarisms in DERIVATION: Systemize, deputize, happify, firstly for first, illy for ill, behooveful, securement, forgetable, indebtment. Barbarisms in COMPOUND WORDS: Sidehill ‡ for hill-side, sundown for sunset, fellow-countrymen for countrymen; pre-seeing, foredetermine, free-volitional, unfurthersome, secundogeniture. Among barbarisms are to be enumerated unauthorized derivatives and compound words the parts of which are from * Poetic use. Many words are admissible in poetry which must be pronouneed barbarisms in prose. Technical use. different languages. Many words of this class, chiefly Latin or French combined with original English or Anglo-Saxon words, are in approved use. Indeed, so thoroughly naturalized are many affixes and prefixes, as well as stem-words of Latin origin, that they are freely joined with those of AngloSaxon origin. To the same stem we often find in fact affixes from both languages, forming pairs of words with slightly varying import, as rigidness, rigidity; nobleness, nobility; humaneness, humanity; laxness, laxity; effeminateness, effeminacy; matronly, matronal. The general rule is to avoid hybrid compounds unless of undoubted authority. The same principle applies to phrases. When there is liberty of choice, principal words and modifying words should be of kindred origin. Thus Macaulay writes “felicity of expression," although happiness is in itself, being of Anglo-Saxon origin, preferable. § 290. A fault in respect to the grammatical construction of the sentence is called a SOLECISM. There are recognized four principles of sentence-construction, two regulating the agreement in inflection. and the arrangement of the words, and two regulating the kind and number of words to be supplied. 1. Grammatical Concord, including agreement and government, requires the proper grammatical inflections in the use of words related to one another in the sentence. Instances of faults are: The diversity of these two remarkable cases occurring so nearly at the same time and in such similar circumstances are yet very apparent. Whom do they calculate will be appointed? They could not prevent his name being brought before the convention. I knew it was them. The "Lives of the Poets" were written by Johnson at a later date. |