ess.
In this book, the syntax of interjections stands thus: "RULE 21. The
interjections _O, oh_ and _ah_ are followed by _the objective case_ of a
noun or pronoun, as: 'O me! ah me! oh me!' In the second person, they are
_a mark_ or _sign_ of an address, made to a person or thing, as: O thou
persecutor! Oh, ye hypocrites! O virtue, how amiable thou art!"--Page 157.
The inaccuracy of all this can scarcely be exceeded.

[440] "_Oh_ is used to express the emotion of _pain, sorrow_, or
_surprise_. _O_ is used to express _wishing, exclamation_, or a direct
_address_ to a person."--_Lennie's Gram._, 12th Ed., p. 110. Of this
distinction our grammarians in general seem to have no conception; and, in
fact, it is so often disregarded by other authors, that the propriety of it
may be disputed. Since _O_ and _oh_ are pronounced alike, or very nearly
so, if there is no difference in their application, they are only different
modes of writing the same word, and one or the other of them is useless. If
there is a real difference, as I suppose there is, it ought to be better
observed; and _O me!_ and _oh ye!_ which I believe are found only in
grammars, should be regarded as bad English. Both _O_ and _oh_, as well as
_ah_, were used in Latin by Terence, who was reckoned an elegant writer;
and his manner of applying them favours this distinction: and so do our own
dictionaries, though Johnson and Walker do not draw it clearly, for _oh_ is
as much an "_exclamation_" as _O_. In the works of Virgil, Ovid, and
Horace, we find _O_ or _o_ used frequently, but nowhere _oh_. Yet this is
no evidence of their sameness, or of the uselessness of the latter; but
rather of their difference, and of the impropriety of confounding them. _O,
oh, ho_, and _ah_, are French words as well as English. Boyer, in his
Quarto Dictionary, confounds them all; translating "O!" only by "_Oh!_"
"OH! _ou_ HO!" by "_Ho! Oh!_" and "AH!" by "_Oh! alas! well-a-day! ough! A!
ah! hah! ho!_" He would have done better to have made each one explain
itself; and especially, not to have set down "_ough!_" and "_A!_" as
English words which correspond to the French _ah!_

[441] This silence is sufficiently accounted for by _Murray's_; of whose
work, most of the authors who have any such rule, are either piddling
modifiers or servile copyists. And Murray's silence on these matters, is in
part attributable to the fact, that when he wrote his remark, his system of
grammar denied that no