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Obs. 18.-THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE indicates one thing of a kind, and therefore must not be used to denote the whole kind.

We may say, The unicorn is a kind of rhinoceros, but not, The unicorn is a kind of a rhinoceros.

(iii.) Numeral Adjectives are the strictest mode of assigning degree, and are used in all exact measurements. They are either («) Cardinal, or (8) Ordinal.

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"John Phoenix" even went so far as to propose a system of numerical adverbs of degree.

Let us then represent by the number 100, the maximum, the ne plus ultra of every human quality-grace, beauty, courage, strength, wisdom, learning--everything. Let perfection, I say, be represented by 100, and an absolute minimum of all qualities by the number 1. Then by applying the numbers between, to the adjectives used in conversation, we shall be able to arrive at a very close approximation to the idea we wish to convey; in other words, we shall be enabled to speak the truth. Glorious, soul-inspiring idea! For instance, the most ordinary question asked of you is, How do you do?" To this, instead of replying, "Pretty well," " Very well," "Quite well," or the like absurdities after running through your mind that perfection of health is 100, no health at all, 1-you say, with a graceful bow, Th..nk you, I'm 52 to day;" or, feeling poorly, "I'm 13, I'm obliged to you" or "I'm 68," or "75," or "87%," as the case may be! Do you see how very close in this way you may approximate to truth; and how clearly your questioner will understand what he so anxiously wishes to arrive at-your exact state of health?

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Let this system be adopted into our elements of grammar, our conversation, our literature, and we become at once an exact, precise, mathematical, truth-telling people. It will apply to everything but politics; there, truth being of no account, the system is useless. But in literature, how admirable! Take an example:

As a 19 young and 76 beautiful lady was 52 gayly tripping down the sidewalk of our 84 frequented street, she accidentally came in contact-100 (this shows that she came in close contact)—with a 73 fat, but 87 good-humore looking gentleman, who was 93 (¿.e., intently) gazing into the window of a toy-shop. Gracefully 56 extricating herself, she received the excuses of the 96 embarrassed Falstaff with a 68 bland smile, and continued on her way. But hardly-7-had she reached the corner of the block, ere she was overtaken by a 24 young man, 32 poorly dressed, but of an 85 expression of countenance; 91 hastily touching her 54 beautifully rounded arm, he said, to her 67 surprise

"Madam, at the window of the toy-shop yonder you dropped this bracelet, which I had the 71 good fortune to observe, and now have the 94 happiness to hand to you." (Of course the expression “94 happiness" is merely the young man's polite hyperbole.)

Blushing with 76 modesty, the lovely (76, as before, of course) lady took the bracelet -which was a 24 magnificent diamond clasp (24 magnificent, playfully sarcastic; it was probably not one of Tucker's)-from the young man's hand, and 84 hesitatingly drew from her beautifully 38 embroidered reticule a 67 portemonnaie. The young man noticed the action, and 73 proudly drawing back, added

"Do not thank me; the pleasure of gazing for an instant at those 100 eyes (perhaps

too exaggerated a compliment) has already more than compensated me for any trouble that I might have had."

She thanked him, however, and with a 67 blush and a 48 pensive air, turned from him, and pursued with a 33 slow step her promenade.-A New System of English Grammar.

(a) Cardinals are used of groups, and show the size of the group; as, Three men; 365 days.

Obs. 19.-IN WRITING NUMBERS, round sums are usually spelled out, as are numbers smaller than one hundred. But where statistics are given, figures should be used, however small the number may be. Sums of money should usually be expressed in figures where both dollars and cents are to be expressed.

NOTE III.-Numbers above one thousand, except in dates, are commonly divided by commas into periods of three figures each. Thus, $2,467.89; 34,586,709. See also page 259.

Obs. 20.-COLLECTIVE WORDS, like couple, dozen, etc., should be used to express number only when the objects enumerated are grouped in couples, dozens, etc.

EXERCISE XIII.-Correct the following sentences.

Example.-Two days after. (If it is desirable to retain the air of indefiniteness that belongs to "a couple of days after," but is lost in the precision of "two days after," we may say, "a day or wo after," or "some two or three days after.")

A couple of days after.-THACKERAY. I have another with a couple of hundred Continentals behind him.—THACKERAY. Wanted three or four dozen females to make match-boxes.

(8) Ordinals are used of individuals, and show the position of the individual in the group; as, The third man, The 365th day.

Obs. 21. The th that denotes the ordinal should be placed at the end of the entire number; thus:

The Evening Telegram says: "The Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, preached his seventeenth hundred sermon on Sunday

morning." The Telegram should explain what a "hundred sermon" is, and why Mr. Beecher has preached seventeen of them.

Obs. 22.--USAGE DIFFERS as to whether a numeral following a noun is to be considered a cardinal or an ordinal.

Thus we may write either Sept. 3, or Sept. 3d; Part Two, or Part Second.

(2) Possessives denote possession, or some kindred connection.

For punctuation, see page 259.

The truth is that the English case in 8 has not only the possessive use of the AngloSaxon genitive, but the other cases which stand nearest to this. Thus it is constantly employed to denote connection in family, or state, or society: as in John's brother, Henry's neighbor, England's queen, the king's enemies-in old English we find even the king's traitors. Mr. Manning might perhaps argue that to say the king's enemies implies that "the king has enemies," and expresses therefore a possessive relation. But the verb have is a word of very general meaning, which can be used in a multitude of cases where there is no possession, properly so called, and sometimes even where our possessive case would be inadmissible. Thus, every apple has a half, but we cannot say every apple's half. Still farther our case in 8 is used to express the subject of an action or attribute: as in coward's fear, God's love, the prisoner's being absent. But relations which stand at a wider distance from the possessive cannot be expressed in this way. Thus, the objective relation: we do not say God's fear, but the fear of God; not the child's guardianship, but the guardianship of the child. We do indeed say England's ruler, the child's guardian; but here it is political or social connection that is thought of, and not the object of the action. In like manner our case in & cannot be used as a genitive partitive (not women's loveliest, but loveliest of women); nor as a genitive of material (not leather's girdle, but girdle of leather); nor as a genitive of designation (not Italy's kingdom, but kingdom of Italy).—JAMES HADLEY.

Obs. 23. The Objective Genitive, or the relation of the possessive to its noun as the object of the action implied in the noun, not being permitted in English, such expressions as "In our midst," for "In the midst of us," must be carefully avoided.

An attorney not celebrated for his probity was robbed one night on his way from Wicklow to Dublin. His father, meeting Baron O'Grady next day, said: "My lord, have you heard of my son's robbery?" "No, indeed," replied the Baron; "pray whom did he rob?"-HODGSON.

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Obs. 24.-A Relation of Persons.-" Another rule is to avoid converting mere abstractions into persons. I believe you will very rarely find in any great writer before the Revolution the possessive case of an inanimate noun used in prose instead of the dependent case, as, 'the watch's hand,' for the hand of a watch.' The possessive or Saxon genitive was confined to persons, or at least to animated subjects."-COLERIDGE.

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In modern English the inflected possessive of nouns expresses almost exclusively the notion of property or appurtenance. Hence we say a man's hat, or a man's hand, but the description of a man, not a man's description. And of course we generally limit the application of this form to words which indicate objects capable of possessing or enjoying the right of property: in a word, to persons, or at least animated and conscious creatures, and we accordingly speak of a woman's bonnet, but not of a house's roof.-MARSH.

Obs. 25. Whose as the possessive of which (neuter) is therefore subject to criticism.

The author asks credit for his having here and elsewhere resisted the temptation of substituting "whose" for “of which”the misuse of the said pronoun relative "whose," where the antecedent neither is nor is meant to be represented as either personal or even animal, he would brand as one among the worst of the mimicries of poetic diction, by which imbecile writers fancy they elevate their prose-would but that to his vexation he meets with it of late in the compositions of men that least of all need such artifices, and who ought to watch over the purity and privileges of their mother tongue with all the jealousy of high priests set apart by nature for the pontificate. Poor as our language is in terminations and inflections significant of the genders, to destroy the few it possesses is most wrongful.-COLERIDGE.

At present the use of whose, the possessive of who, is pretty generally confined to persons or things personified, and we should scruple to say, "I passed a house whose windows were open."MARSH.

Yet in "Man and Nature" Mr. Marsh writes, "a quadrangular pyramid, the perpendicular of whose sides" (p. 145).

Campbell says:

The possessive of who is properly whose; the pronoun which, originally indeclinable, had no possessive. This want was supplied in the common periphrastic manner, by the help of the preposition and the article. But as this could not fail to enfeeble the expression, when so much time was given to mere conjunctives, all our best authors, both in prose and in verse, have come now regularly to adopt in such cases the possessive of who; and thus have substituted one syllable in the place of three, as in the example following: "Philosophy, whose end is to instruct us in the knowledge of nature," for, "Philosophy, the end of which is to instruct us."-Rhetoric, ii. 375.

Its has a curious history, showing the prejudice that had to be overcome in establishing a neuter possessive.

In Anglo-Saxon the personal pronoun represented in English by he, she, it, made the genitive or possessive his for the masculine and neuter gender, her (hire) for the feminine, and so long as grammatical gender had not an invariable relation to sex, the employment of a common form for the masculine and neuter excited no feeling of incongruity. The change in the grammatical significance of gender suggested the same embarrassment with relation to the universal application of his as of whose, and when this was brought into distinct consciousness a remedy was provided. At first, it was used as a possessive, without inflection or a preposition, and several instances of this occur in Shakspere, as also in Leviticus xxv. 5, of the Bible of 1611: "That which groweth of it own accord." Its, although to be found in printed books of a somewhat earlier date, is not once used in that edition, his being in all cases but that just cited employed instead. The precise date and occasion of the first introduction of its is not ascertained, but it could not have been far from the year 1600.

For a considerable period about the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was evidently a sense of incongruity in the application of his to objects incapable of the distinction of sex, and at the same time a reluctance to sanction the introduction of the new form its as a substitute. Accordingly, for the first half of that century many of the best writers rejected them both, and I think English folios can be found which do not contain an example of either. Of it, thereof, and longer circumlocutions were preferred, or the very idea of the possessive relation was avoided altogether.

Fuller has its in some of his works, in others he rejects it, and in the Pisgah Sight of Palestine, printed in 1650, both forms are sometimes applied to a neuter noun in the course of a single sentence: as, "Whether from the violence of winds, then blowing on its stream, and angering it beyond his banks."—MARSH.

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