word _interjection_ comes to us from the Latin name
_interjectio_, the root of which is the verb _interjicio_, to throw
between, to interject. Interjections are so called because they are usually
thrown in between _the parts of discourse_, without any syntactical
connexion with other words. Dr. Lowth, in his haste, happened to describe
them as a kind of natural sounds "thrown in between the parts _of a
sentence_;" and this strange blunder has been copied into almost every
definition that has been given of the Interjection since. See Murray's
Grammar and others. Webster's Dictionary defines it as, "A word thrown in
between _words connected in construction_;" but of all the parts of speech
none are less frequently found in this situation.

OBS. 3.--The following is a fair sample of "Smith's _New Grammar_,"--i.e.,
of "English Grammar on the _Productive System_,"--a new effort of quackery
to scarf up with cobwebs the eyes of common sense: "Q. When I exclaim, 'Oh!
I have ruined my friend,' 'Alas! I fear for life,' _which words_ here
appear to be thrown in _between the sentences_, to express passion or
feeling? Ans. _Oh! Alas!_ Q. What does _interjection_ mean? Ans. _Thrown
between_. Q. What name, then, shall we give such words as _oh! alas! &c._?
Ans. INTERJECTIONS. Q. What, then, are interjections? Ans. Interjections
are words thrown in _between the parts of sentences_, to express the
passions or sudden feelings of the speaker. Q. How may an interjection
generally be known? Ans. By _its taking_ an exclamation _point_ after it:
[as,] '_Oh!_ I have alienated my friend.'"--_R. C. Smith's New Gram._, p.
39. Of the interjection, this author gives, in his examples for parsing,
_fifteen_ other instances; but nothing can be more obvious, than that not
more than one of the whole fifteen stands either "between sentences" or
between the parts of any sentence! (See _New Gram._, pp. 40 and 96.) Can he
be a competent grammarian, who does not know the meaning of _between_; or
who, knowing it, misapplies so very plain a word?

OBS. 4.--The Interjection, which is idly claimed by sundry writers to have
been the first of words at the origin of language, is now very constantly
set down, among the parts of speech, as the last of the series. But, for
the name of this the last of the ten sorts of words, some of our
grammarians have adopted the term _exclamation_. Of the old and usual term
_interjection_, a recent writer justly says, "This name is