learned pagans
ridiculed the _Jews_ for _being_ a credulous _people_." Here _people_ is in
the objective case, because the preceding noun _Jews_ is so. In both
instances the preposition _for_ governs the participle _being_, and nothing
else. "The atrocious crime of _being_ a young _man_, I shall neither
attempt to palliate _or_ deny."--PITT: _Bullions's E. Gram._, p. 82; _S. S.
Greene's_, 174. Sanborn has this text, with "_nor_" for
"_or_."--_Analytical Gram._, p. 190. This example has been erroneously
cited, as one in which the case of the noun after the participle is _not
determined_ by its relation to any other word. Sanborn absurdly supposes it
to be "in the _nominative independent_." Bullions as strangely tells us,
"it may correctly be called the _objective indefinite_"--like _me_ in the
following example: "He was not sure of _its being me_."--_Bullions's E.
Gram._, p. 82. This latter text I take to be _bad English_. It should be,
"He was not sure _of it as being me_;" or, "He was not sure _that it was
I."_ But, in the text above, there is an evident transposition. The
syntactical order is this: "_I_ shall neither deny _nor_ attempt to
palliate the atrocious crime of being a young _man_." The words _man_ and
_I_ refer to the same person, and are therefore in the same case, according
to the rule which I have given above.

OBS. 8.--S. S. Greene, in his late Grammar, improperly denominates this
case after the participle _being_, "the _predicate-nominative_," and
imagines that it necessarily remains a nominative even when the possessive
case precedes the participle. If he were right in this, there would be an
important exception to Rule 6th above. But so singularly absurd is his
doctrine about "_abridged predicates_," that in general the _abridging_
shows an _increase_ of syllables, and often a conversion of good English
into bad. For example: "_It_ [the predicate] remains _unchanged in the
nominative_, when, with the participle of the copula, _it_ becomes _a
verbal noun_, limited by the possessive case of the subject; as, 'That he
was a foreigner prevented his election,'='_His_ being a _foreigner_
prevented his election.'"--_Greene's Analysis_, p. 169. Here the number of
syllables is unaltered; but _foreigner_ is very improperly called "a verbal
noun," and an example which only lacks a comma, is changed to what Wells
rightly calls an "_anomalous expression_," and one wherein that author
supposes _foreigner_ and _his_