s _are_,"--"_Each_ thousand
years _are_"--"_Every_ thousand years _are_," &c. But it would not be
proper to say, "A thousand years _is_," or, "Every thousand years _is_;"
because the noun _years_ is plainly plural, and the anomaly of putting a
singular verb after it, is both needless and unauthorized. Yet, to this
general rule for the verb, the author of a certain "English Grammar _on the
Productive System_," (a strange perversion of Murray's compilation, and a
mere catch-penny work, now extensively used in New England,) is
endeavouring to establish, by his own bare word, the following exception:
"_Every_ is sometimes associated with a plural noun, in which case the verb
must be singular; as, 'Every hundred years _constitutes_ a
century.'"--_Smith's New Gram._, p. 103. His _reason_ is this; that the
phrase containing the nominative, "_signifies a single period of time_, and
is, therefore, _in reality_ singular."--_Ib._ Cutler also, a more recent
writer, seems to have imbibed the same notion; for he gives the following
sentence as an example of "false construction: Every hundred years _are_
called a century."--_Cutler's Grammar and Parser_, p. 145. But, according
to this argument, no plural verb could ever be used with any _definite
number_ of the parts of time; for any three years, forty years, or
threescore years and ten, are as single a period of time, as "every hundred
years," "every four years," or "every twenty-four hours." Nor is it true,
that, "_Every_ is sometimes associated with a plural noun;" for "_every
years_" or "_every hours_," would be worse than nonsense. I, therefore,
acknowledge no such exception; but, discarding the principle of the note,
put this author's pretended _corrections_ among my quotations of _false
syntax_.

OBS. 5.--Different verbs always have different subjects, expressed or
understood; except when two or more verbs are connected in the same
construction, or when the same word is repeated for the sake of emphasis.
But let not the reader believe the common doctrine of our grammarians,
respecting either the ellipsis of nominatives or the ellipsis of verbs. In
the text, "The man was old and crafty," Murray sees no connexion of the
ideas of age and craftiness, but thinks the text a _compound sentence_,
containing two nominatives and two verbs; i.e., "The man was old, and _the
man was_ crafty." [387] And all his other instances of "the ellipsis of the
verb" are equally fanciful! See his _Octav