the PREPOSITION:--"It shall be done [_on_] this very day."--"We shall
set off [_at_] some time [_in_] next month."--"He departed [_from_] this
life."--"He gave [_to_] me a book."--"We walked [_through_] a mile."--"He
was banished [_from_] the kingdom."--_W. Allen_. "He lived like [_to_] a
prince."--_Wells_.

10. Of the INTERJECTION:--"Oh! the frailty, [_oh!_] the wickedness of
men."--"Alas for Mexico! and [_alas_] for many of her invaders!"

11. Of PHRASES or CLAUSES:--"The active commonly do more than they are
bound to do; the indolent [_commonly do_] less" [_than they are bound to
do_].--"Young men, angry, mean less than they say; old men, [_angry, mean_]
more" [_than they say_].--"It is the duty of justice, not to injure men;
[_it is the duty_] of modesty, not to offend them."--_W. Allen_.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Grammarians in general treat of ellipsis without _defining_ it;
and exhibit such rules and examples as suppose our language to be a
hundred-fold more elliptical than it really is.[479] This is a great error,
and only paralleled by that of a certain writer elsewhere noticed, who
denies the existence of all ellipsis whatever. (See Syntax, Obs. 24th on
Rule 22d.) Some have defined this figure in a way that betrays a very
inaccurate notion of what it is: as, "ELLIPSIS is _when_ one or more words
are wanting _to complete the sense_."--_Adam's Lat. and Eng. Gram._, p.
235; _Gould's_, 229. "ELLIPSIS is the omission of one or more words
necessary _to complete the sense_."--_Bullions, Lat. Gram._, p. 265. These
definitions are decidedly worse than none; because, if they have any
effect, they can only mislead. They absurdly suggest that every elliptical
sentence lacks a part of its own meaning! Ellipsis is, in fact, the mere
omission or absence of certain _suggested words_; or of words that may be
spared from utterance, _without defect in the sense_. There never can be an
ellipsis of any thing which is either unnecessary to the construction or
necessary to the sense; for to say what we mean and nothing more, never can
constitute a deviation from the ordinary grammatical construction of words.
As a figure of Syntax, therefore, the _ellipsis_ can only be of such words
as are so evidently suggested to the reader, that the writer is as fully
answerable for them as if he had written them.

OBS. 2.--To suppose an ellipsis where there is none, or to overlook one
where it really occurs, is to pervert or mutilate the te