t substantively. They form this phrase in
many different fashions, and yet each man of them pretends that what he
approves, is just like the construction of a regular noun: "_Just as we
say_, 'What is the reason of this person's _hasty dismission of_ his
servant.'"--_Murray, Fisk, and others. "Just as we say_, 'What is the
meaning of this lady's _dress_,' &c."--_Priestley_. The meaning of a
_lady's dress_, forsooth! The illustration is worthy of the doctrine
taught. "_An entire clause of a sentence_" substantively possessed, is
sufficiently like "_the meaning of a lady's dress, &c._" Cobbett despised
_andsoforths_, for their lack of meaning; and I find none in this one,
unless it be, "_of tinsel and of fustian_." This gloss therefore I wholly
disapprove, judging the position more tenable, to deny, if we consequently
must, that either a phrase or a participle, as such, can consistently
govern the possessive case. For whatever word or term gives rise to the
direct relation of property, and is rightly made to govern the possessive
case, ought in reason to be a _noun_--ought to be the name of some
substance, quality, state, action, passion, being, or thing. When therefore
other parts of speech assume this relation, they naturally _become nouns_;
as, "Against the day of _my burying_."--_John_, xii, 7. "Till the day of
_his showing_ unto Israel."--_Luke_, i, 80. "By _my own
showing_."--_Cowper, Life_, p. 22. "By a fortune of _my own
getting_."--_Ib._ "Let _your yea_ be yea, and _your nay_ nay."--_James_, v,
12. "Prate of _my whereabout_."--_Shah_.

OBS. 16.--The government of possessives by "_entire clauses_" or
"_substantive phrases_," as they are sometimes called, I am persuaded, may
best be disposed of, in almost every instance, by charging the construction
with impropriety or awkwardness, and substituting for it some better
phraseology. For example, our grammars abound with sentences like the
following, and call them good English: (1.) "So we may either say, 'I
remember _it being_ reckoned a great exploit;' or perhaps more elegantly,
'I remember _its being_ reckoned a great exploit.'"--_Priestley, Murray,
and others_. Here both modes are wrong; the latter, especially; because it
violates a general rule of syntax, in regard to the case of the noun
_exploit_. Say, "I remember _it_ was reckoned a great exploit." Again: (2.)
"We also properly say, 'This will be the effect of the _pupil's composing_
frequently.'"--_Murray's Gra