_this week_;" say, "I _have seen_ him _this week_."
So, in stead of, "I _told_ you _already_;" or, "I _have told_ you
_before_;" say, "I _have told_ you _already_;"--"I _told_ you _before_."

NOTE XIV.--Verbs of commanding, desiring, expecting, hoping, intending,
permitting, and some others, in all their tenses, refer to actions or
events, relatively present or future: one should therefore say, "I hoped
you _would come_;" not, "I hoped you _would have come_;"--and, "I intended
_to do_ it;" not, "I intended _to have done_ it;"--&c.

NOTE XV.--Propositions that are as true now as they ever were or will be,
should generally be expressed in the present tense: as, "He seemed hardly
to know, that two and two _make_ four;" not, "_made_."--_Blair's Gram._, p.
65. "He will tell you, that whatever _is, is_ right." Sometimes the present
tense is improper with the conjunction _that_, though it would be quite
proper without it; as, "Others said, _That_ it _is_ Elias. And others said,
_That_ it _is_ a prophet."--_Mark_, vi, 15. Here _That_ should be omitted,
or else _is_ should be _was_. The capital _T_ is also improper.

IMPROPRIETIES FOR CORRECTION.

FALSE SYNTAX UNDER RULE XVII.

UNDER THE RULE ITSELF.--NOMINATIVES CONNECTED BY OR.

"We do not know in what either reason or instinct consist."--_Rambler_, No.
41.

[FORMULE.--Not proper, because the verb _consist_ is of the plural number,
and does not correctly agree with its two nominatives, _reason_ and
_instinct_, which are connected by _or_, and taken disjunctively. But,
according to Rule 17th, "When a verb has two or more nominatives connected
by _or_ or _nor_, it must agree with them singly, and not as if taken
together." Therefore, _consist_ should be _consists_; thus, "We do not know
in what either reason or instinct _consists_."]

"A noun or a pronoun joined with a participle, constitute a nominative case
absolute."--_Bicknell's Gram._, Part ii, p. 50. "The relative will be of
that case, which the verb or noun following, or the preposition going
before, use to govern."--_Dr. Adam's Gram._, p. 203. "Which the verb or
noun following, or the preposition going before, usually govern."--_Gould's
Adam's Gram._, p. 200.[401] "In the different modes of pronunciation which
habit or caprice give rise to."--_Knight, on the Greek Alphabet_, p. 14.
"By which he, or his deputy, were authorized to cut down any trees in
Whittlebury forest."--_Junius_, p. 251. "Wherever objects wer