ENGLISH TONGUE.
commodating the letters to the pronunciation, by ejecting such as they thought superfluous. Some of them would have written these lines thus:
All the erth Shall then be paradis, far happier place Than this of Eden, and far happier dais.
Bishop Wilkins afterwards, in his great work of the philosophical language, proposed, without expecting to be followed, a regular orthography; by which the Lord's prayer is to be written thus:
Yȣr Fádher hȣitsh art in hèven, halloed bi dhyi nám, dhyi cingdým cým, dhy ȣill bi dýn in erth as it is in héven, &c.
We have since had no general reformers; but some ingenious men have endeavoured to deserve well of their country, by writing honor and labor for honour and labour, red for read in the preter-tense, sais for says, repete for repeat, explane for explain, or declame for declaim. Of these it may be said, that as they have done no good, they have done little harm; both because they have innovated little, and because few have followed them.
Etymology.
Etymology teaches the deduction of one word from another, and the various modifications by which the sense of the same word is diversified; as horse, horses; I love, I loved.
Of the Article.
The English have two articles, an or a, and the.
An, a.
A has an indefinite signification, and means one, with some reference to more; as, This is a good book, that is, one among the books that are good. He was killed by a sword, that is, some sword. This is a better book for a man that a boy, that is, for one of those that are men than one of those that are boys. An army might enter without resistance, that is, any army.
In the senses in which we use a or an in the singular, we speak in the plural without an article; as, these are good books.
I have made an the original article, because it is only the Saxon an, or æn, one, applied to a new use, as the German ein, and the French un; the n being cut off before a consonant in the speed of utterance.
Grammarians of the last age direct, that an should be used before h; whence it appears that the English anciently aspirated less. An is still used before the silent h, as an herb, an honest man: but otherwise a; as,
The has a particular and definite signification.
The fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world.
That is, that particular fruit, and this world in which we live. So He giveth fodder for the cattle, and green herbs for the use of man; that is, for those beings that are cattle, and his use that is man.
The is used in both numbers.
| I am as free as Nature first made man, | |
| Ere the base laws of servitude began, | |
| When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
Dryden.
|
Many words are used without articles; as,
1. Proper names, as John, Alexander, Longinus, Aristarchus, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London. God is used as a proper name. Abstract names, as blackness, witchcraft, virtue, vice, beauty, ugliness, love, hatred, anger, goodnature, kindness.
