Page:The Comic English Grammar.djvu/69

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ETYMOLOGY.
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whereat there was much laughter, which, notwithstanding, I took in good part, and wiped my face and looked pleasantly. For peradventure I said, they will listen to my sermon; yea, and after that we may have a collection. So I was nowise discomfited; wherefore I advise thee, Brother Habakkuk, to take no heed of thy persecutors, seeing that I, whereas I was once little better off than thyself, have now a chapel of mine own. And herein let thy mind be comforted, that, preach as much as thou wilt against the Bishop, thou wilt not, therefore, in these days, be in danger of the pillory. Howbeit," &c.

Vide Life of the late pious and Rev. Samuel Simcox (letter to Habakkuk Brown.)

CHAPTER VIII.

OF PREPOSITIONS.

Prepositions are, for the most part, put before nouns and pronouns: as, "out of the frying-pan into the fire."

The preposition of is sometimes used as a part of speech of peculiar signification, and one to which no name has as yet been applied: as, "What you been doing of?"

At and up are not rarely used as verbs, but we should scarcely have been justified in so classing them by the authority of any polite writer; such use of them being confined to the vulgar: as, "Now then, Bill, at him again." "So she upped with her fists, and fetched him a whop."

After is improperly pronounced arter, and against,

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