Book Description

From the PREFACE. This book is designed as a complete summary of English grammar. It is not of the class of small grammars that are made brief by leaving out bodily numerous important matters. Brevity is here secured by eliminating discussions and extended explanations, while retaining every important fact. The aim is to include everything in correct English usage that is a legitimate subject of rational inquiry for practical purposes. The method of Direct Statement has been followed throughout. Interesting as the philosophy of language is, school children, clerks, stenographers, business men, have not time-nor ability-to work out by "induction" the facts of English usage established during the five centuries since the death of Chaucer. The attempt to do so is but playing with the impossible. The result of that system is to give the student the feeling that grammar is guesswork- "sometimes you can guess it, and sometimes not." So he goes on guessing through his life, and half the time guessing wrong. The facts of correct English usage are, for the most part, as sure as the facts of the working of a watch or of a locomotive. We can do no better service for any student, young or old, than to tell him definitely what those facts are, and let him learn them once for al1. These definitely settled facts are sometimes given as "rules," but since many persons have the feeling that a grammatical "rule" is something arbitrarily inflicted upon the language by grammarians, the author has here deemed it preferable, in most cases, to state the accepted facts of English usage simply as facts, rather than in the form of "rules." The facts so stated will be found to be such. They have been verified by extensive study of the best authorities, including the New English Dictionary of Dr. Murray, with its unrivalled store of quotations from standard English authors from the thirteenth century to the present time; Maetzner's English Grammar, a work of wonderful philosophical acumen, also rich in quotations from standard English authors; Goold Brown's remarkable compilation in his Grammar of English Grammars, and the most prominent text-books on grammar now in accredited use in the public schools. Statements which are given, seemingly off-hand, in some few lines', are always the result of careful, and often of protracted, study. The aim has been to make every statement in the highest degree dependable -- safe to rely upon and to act upon. So constructed, it is believed that this brief work is not excelled in accuracy by the most pretentious volumes now before the public. To have such results massed in a compact and handy volume is a distinct desideratum.