The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1860-09-11
Fer the Mtelligeneer.
The Lamar System of English Grammar

VnC 4J1UldT SIStCm VI
No. g.
MEssRs Ep1roRs: It has been shown in pre-
vious article that Mr. Lamar has used his dssectng
knife upon the Verb, bisecting it at the auxiliary
junction, transforming..the auxiliary into princi-
pal Verb and the principal into perfect partici-
ple-reducing the number of lenses to three, and
destroying the pass;cessverb entirely.
Now sirs, we lay it down an incontrovertible
proposition and challenge any or ell of the advo-
Gates of Mr.. Lamar's System Of Grammar, or
Mr.. Bamar himself, or him andaall combined, to
show to the contrary-that the English Verb has
sir lenses, because it has six different forms by
which "an action, state or being may be affirmed
of its subject each indicating different Timcs as
il relates to The subject and time of the speaker;
that these different infections, notifications or
variations of the Verb arc caused by the different
relations that the Time of the Verb bears to the
Time of the speaker and Shnt these different
riations are called the T,scs of the Verb, signify
ing in Grammar the Times of the Verb, not that
the term Tense literally means Time, but because
it is derived from tcndo, the literal Specification of
which is, to stretch, extend or vary. Hence, the
stretching extending or variation of the Verb to
show its different Times.
We will. in the next place, give the reader one
of Mr.. Lamars model sentences " He HAS WRIT
TEN"
PARsING.-He is Pronoun of the third per-
son singular number masculine gender, ssd snEl
ject of has; Has is Verb in the present tense,
third person singular number, .li agrees with he;
Hritten is perfect participle and refers to he."
Now is not this supremely ridiculous-an out
rage upon common sense--an insult offered to the
intelligence of the age-to attempt to thrust such
nonsensical stuff US this down the throats of the
people, and then, to cap the climax, have the bra
zen, unheard of effrontery to call it Grammar
yea, philosophical Grammar, founded upon reason
and common scasc,;" when every one can seeat one
single indirect glance that it perfect burlesque
upon common sense and founded upon tho very
quintessence of nonsense
Now we take the position that it is Grammati-
cal impossbity, in at least four-fold sense for
''written" in this sentence to be n particple.
In the first place, Mr. Lamar's own definition of
the Verb is proof of the highest possible order,
that "written" in this sentence should not be
parsed or ''disposcd of" as participle, for his
definition of the Verb is in these words GA
Verb is word that expresses the action, state or
being of the yphject :" and cannot every one see,
who has discrimnatve qualities sufficient to dis
tinguish Lamar's Practical Grammar from
Morse's Electric Telegraph, that it is "writtcn
and not "has," 'that expresses the action of the
subject" in this, his model sentence and that
''written' should be parsed as Verb, because it
performs the very identical Office that Mr.. Lamar
tells us the Verb performs. 1t is an impossibity
in the second place, because this form of the Verb
when used as participle, always has passive
Specification, and consequently cannot possibly be
used in an actire Sense written" Isl in this
tence 1t is an impossiblity in the third place,
because it oJl,tcrates tSe line of dcmarcation be-
tween the Verb and Participle, making the parti-
cipial existence of this form of the Verb depend
entirely upon form, when in reality it is not the
form that infuscs into it its partcipial existence
but the manner in which it is expressed of its sub
iect. Whenever this form of the Verb is affirmed
or predicatcd of ITS subject, so to constitute
complete proposition, IL iS tneu ferD, anu Gull
not possibly be any other part of speech because
it does the very thing that the whole grammatical
world, and Mr.. Lamar besides, informs US the
Verb does but on the contrary, whenever this
form of the Verb is assumed of its subject, so as
not to constitute complete proposition, it is then
participle, and cannot possibly be any other
part of speech, because ii performs the very idcn-
teal Office that the whole Grammatical world, and
Mr. Lamar besides, tells us the Participle per-
FORMS 1t is an impossibility in the fourth and
last place, because when this form of the Verb as
sumes its particpial Office it has passive sgnif-
cation and its Time is always that of the principal
Verb in the sentence; and hence, as Mr. Lamar
makes ''has' in this sentence the principal Verb
and in the present tense Ab0olute, it follows
clearly and unequivocally, according to the Lamar
system, as that two and two make four, that his
combination, or Tense of the Verb, does not mean
what those who use the English language as ve-
hiclc for thought imagine it does and is only after
all superHuous Pathological expression, which,
when pruned of its redundancy, is only equivalent
to 81 write"
We will in our next give Mr.. Lamar's Rules,
which he has given to enable the student to know
when to use his three discarded Tenses showing
their absurdity and impracticability.
VIII
The health of Hon. w. Porcher Miles is stated