The Orangeburg democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1879-1881, 1879-09-12

III Gtlc ilUONC
The oply difficulty, am persuaded,
consists in the very defective and CT
roncous systems Of grammar now in
common use. Our schools suffer no
imposition so egregious rs in tic
cumbrous grammatical textbooks in
common use. They are full of con-
tradictions, and worse than useless d.
visions and subdivisions, happiness OF
definitions anu ~ant OF precision, that
can serve no earthly purpose except
TO destroy the very science Of English
grammar, and 10 orertask The verbal
memory and obscure the mental per-
ccpLion Of the pupil. Once olsen
cumbcr our grammars Of all this use
less and, contradictory jargon, (intro-
duced INTO them by the early writer's
to assimilatc tho Latin, when they.
have no manner of practical adapta-
ton to our language,) and arrange
- StSh oi1 WV - bS pIluC
pies Of the English language, and the
study becomes plain and simple.
There will be no difficulty then in
parsing any correctly written sem
tencc. M.H II
"The British grammars of the En-.
glish languangc, appear to me TO be
very imperfect, and in some particu-
lars, very erroneous IN. Webster's
grammar, page 4. If they are imper.
feet why not supply their DEFICIENCIES?
If they are erroneous, why not correct
and explode their, error? Who was
more competent TO do this than Web
stcr? IT. must be sin to teach what we
know to beierror. and is high time
that the truth should lie made known.
$50 defective and, erroneous are the
British grammars, and the compila-
tions in the United States, formed,
ON their principles, that, without fur
ther helps the; construction Of many
established and legitimate phrases
and SENTENCES in our Language cannot
be explained. .'si--.4W ebstpr's Grammar,
page 4. Then why not have the helps !?
And not '''helps"' in the. form Of more
additions, rules and notes to the old
systems which would only render con-
fusion worse .confounded; but "helps''
by utterly discarding everything from
our grammatical textbooks which
tends to only perpleS and confuse and
is of no earthly use in aiding the pu-
pill to speak and write the English
language correctly, and compiling q
grammar IN accordance with the true
scientific principles Of the language.
Employ apt, simple and suggestive
terms rs tile names Of the parts OF
speech, and then parse rvery ,Uord ac-
cordinyto TO its use. No matter what
the word may be, if its use in the sen.
tence is that of verb, parse it So
if used as on adjective, parse it as an
adjccLive-if used as q proposition,
parse it accordingly, and so on
through the whole Of the parts of
speech. When we nave removed the
accumulated mass Of complicated ab-
surditics from our system of gram
mar us now in use, the difficulties Of
the study will vanish as thir air.
III kirkham's Grammar, page lC2,
may be seen the following sentences,
classed rs idiOms, anomalies and in.
tricacies: l ''I'hc wall is three feet
higl.' 2 "I{is son is eight gears old :"
"My knife Is acorM a shilling" 4
"She is acorth him and all his connec-
lions" 8 "IIe has been there three
times" 6 "Thc hat cost ten dollars"
Z ''rhc load weighs ton" 8 "The
spar measures ninety .tcet."
Now, understand Kirkham TO say
that while these sentences arc correct
English, yet our grammars do not
furnish any rules OF instruction how
they may be parsed. These are but
specimens Of hundreds of similar eX-
prcssions in daily use, and something
must be radically wrong if our gram.
mars furnish no rules by which they
may be intelligenlly parsed. Why
can't these sentences be parsed? We
are told, "dollars" in the 9Th "ton"
in the 7th; and "fcet" in the Slh,
have no governing world, because
"cost," weighs" "mcasure," bcipg
ct!vc-intransitivc verbs neither have