have a closer connexion with their antecedents than the other relatives require: a circumstance worthy to have been better remembered by some critics. "Again, that and as are used rather differently. When that is used, the verb must be repeated; as, 'Participles require the same government, that their verbs require.'--'James showed the same credulity, that his minister showed.' But when as is used, the verb generally may, or may not be repeated; as, 'Participles require the same government as their verbs;' or, 'as their verbs require.'--'James showed the same credulity as his minister;' or, 'as his minister showed:' the second nominative minister being parsed as the nominative to the same verb showed understood."--Nixon's Parser, p. 140.[195]
OBS. 24.--The terminating of a sentence with a preposition, or other small particle, is in general undignified, though perhaps not otherwise improper. Hence the above-named inflexibility in the construction of that and as, sometimes induces an ellipsis of the governing word designed; and is occasionally attended with some difficulty respecting the choice of our terms. Examples: "The answer is always in the same case that the interrogative word is."--Sanborn's Gram., p. 70. Here is a faulty termination; and with it a more faulty ellipsis. In stead of ending the sentence with is in, say, "The answer always agrees in case with the interrogative word." Again: "The relative is of the same person with the antecedent."--Lowth's Gram., p. 101. This sentence is wrong, because the person of the relative is not really identical with the antecedent. "The relative is of the same person as the antecedent."--Murray's Gram., p. 154. Here the writer means--"as the antecedent is of." "A neuter verb becomes active, when followed by a noun of the same signification with its own."--Sanborn's Gram., p. 127. Here same is wrong, or else the last three words are useless. It would therefore be improper to say--"of the same signification as its own." The expression ought to be--"of a signification similar to its own." "Ode is, in Greek, the same with song or hymn."--Blair's Rhet., p. 396. Song being no Greek word, I cannot think the foregoing expression accurate, though one might say, "Ode is identical with song or hymn." Would it not be better to say, "Ode is the same as song or hymn?" That is, "Ode is, literally, the same thing that song or hymn is?" "Treatises of philosophy, ought not to be composed in the same style with orations."--Blair's Rhet., p. 175. Here neither with nor as can be proper; because orations are not a style. Expunge same; and say--"in the style of orations."
OBS. 25.--Few writers are sufficiently careful in their choice and management of relatives. In the following instance, Murray and others violate a special rule of their own grammars, by using whom for that "after an adjective of the superlative degree:" "Modifying them according to the genius of that tongue, and the established practice of the best speakers and writers by whom it is used."--Octavo Gram., p. 1; Fisk's, p. 11; et al. According to Priestley and himself, the great Compiler is here in an error. The rule is perhaps too stringent; but whoever teaches it, should keep it. If he did not like to say, "the best speakers and writers that it is used by;" he ought to have said, "the best speakers and writers that use it." Or, rather, he ought to have said nothing after the word "writers;" because the whole relative clause is here weak and useless. Yet how many of the amenders of this grammar have not had perspicacity enough, either to omit the expression, or to correct it according to the author's own rule!
OBS. 26.--Relative pronouns are capable of being taken in two very different senses: the one, restrictive of the general idea suggested by the antecedent; the other, resumptive of that idea, in the full import of the term--or, in whatever extent the previous definitives allow. The distinction between these two senses, important as it is, is frequently made to depend solely upon the insertion or the omission of a comma. Thus, if I say, "Men who grasp after riches, are never satisfied;" the relative who is taken restrictively, and I am understood to speak only of the avaricious. But, if I say, "Men, who grasp after riches, are never satisfied;" by separating the terms men and who, I declare all men to be covetous and unsatisfied. For the former sense, the relative that is preferable to who; and I shall presently show why. This example, in the latter form, is found in Sanborn's Grammar, page 142d; but whether the author meant what he says, or not, I doubt. Like many other unskillful writers, he has paid little regard to the above-mentioned distinction; and, in some instances, his meaning cannot have been what his words declare: as, "A prism is a solid, whose sides are all parallelograms."--Analytical Gram., p. 142. This, as it stands, is no definition of a prism, but an assertion of two things; that a prism is a solid, and that all the sides of a solid are parallelograms. Erase the comma, and the words will describe the prism as a peculiar kind of solid; because whose will then be taken in the restrictive sense. This sense, however, may be conveyed even with a comma before the relative; as, "Some fictitious histories yet remain, that were composed during the decline of the Roman empire."--Blair's Rhet., p. 374. This does not suggest that there are no other fictitious histories now extant, than such as were composed during the decline of the Roman empire; but I submit it to the reader, whether the word which, if here put for that, would not convey this idea.
OBS. 27.--Upon this point, many philologists are open to criticism; and none more so, than the recent author above cited. By his own plain showing, this grammarian has no conception of the difference of meaning, upon which the foregoing distinction is founded. What marvel, then, that
