prose. All needful contractions however will be
preserved, and sometimes also a capital letter, to show where the author
commenced a line.

[531] The word "_imperfect_" is not really necessary here; for the
declaration is true of _any phrase_, as this name is commonly applied.--G.
BROWN.

[532] A _part of speech_ is a _sort of words_, and not _one word only_. We
cannot say, that every pronoun, or every verb, is _a part of speech_,
because the parts of speech are _only ten_. But every pronoun, verb, or
other word, is _a word_; and, if we will refer to this genus, there is no
difficulty in defining all the parts of speech in the singular, with _an_
or _a_: as, "A _pronoun_ is _a word_ put for _a noun_." Murray and others
say, "_An Adverb_ is _a part of speech_," &c., "A _Conjunction_ is _a part
of speech_," &c., which is the same as to say, "_One adverb_ is _a sort of
words_," &c. This is a palpable absurdity.--G. BROWN.

[533] The propriety of this conjunction, "_nor_," is somewhat questionable:
the reading in both the Vulgate and the Septuagint is--"_they, and_ their
wives, _and_ their sons, _and_ their daughters."

[534] All our lexicographers, and all accurate authors, spell this word
with an _o_; but the gentleman who has furnished us with the last set of
_new terms_ for the science of grammar, writes it with an _e_, and applies
it to the _verb_ and the _participle_. With him, every verb or participle
is an "_asserter_;" except when he forgets his creed, as he did in writing
the preceding example about certain "_verbs_." As he changes the names of
all the parts of speech, and denounces the entire technology of grammar,
perhaps his innovation would have been sufficiently broad, had he for THE
VERB, the most important class of all, adopted some name which he knew how
to spell.--G. B.

[535] It would be better to omit the word "_forth_," or else to say--"whom
I _brought forth from_ the land of Egypt." The phrase, "_forth out of_," is
neither a very common nor a very terse one.--G. BROWN.

[536] This _doctrine_, that participles divide and specify time, I have
elsewhere shown to be erroneous.--G. BROWN.

[537] Perhaps it would be as well or better, in correcting these two
examples, to say, "There _are_ a generation." But the article _a_, as well
as the literal form of the noun, is a sign of unity; and a complete
uniformity of numbers is not here practicable.

[538] Though the pronoun _thou_ is not much used in