Edwin Herbert Lewis

A Text-Book of Applied English Grammar Edwin Herbert Lewis

Publisher Marketing: Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I GRAMMATICAL USAGE DEFINED 7. Grammatical usage is using sucli forms of words, and such combinations of them in sentences, as are considered correct by the best writers and speakers. John's is a form of John; leaves, of leaf; him, of he; began and begun, of begin; drowned, of drown. Isn't is a correct form of is not; aint is an incorrect form. He has begun is a correct combination; he has began is an incorrect combination. Leaves are is a correct combination, leaves is an incorrect. 8. Vulgar usage. All mistakes in grammar (whether incorrect forms or incorrect combinations) are vulgarisms. Vulgar means pertaining to the crowd. The great mass or crowd of people have, as yet, but little education. No man has a right to despise uneducated persons, for they are often the superiors of educated persons in character, in natural ability, and in force of expression. Uneducated persons say I hain't done no such thing, merely because they have never learned to say I've done no such thing, or I haven't done any such thing. Uneducated persons are usually the last persons in the world to wish their children to employ vulgar expressions. 9. There are other vulgarisms besides mistakes in grammar. A bad pronunciation (as jest for just) is a vulgarism. Slang words are usually vulgarisms, but not often mistakes in grammar. The following passages contain vulgarisms, but only the italic words are faults in grammar. Point out all expressions which seem to you vulgar. A. Oh, Daddy! They're gone. What made you let them go? Oh, what made you? Wa'al, Mandy sassed me, 'n' I told her 't I guessed we c'd git along without her. This house ain't good 'nough fer her sence she's been to the city; she wants carpits and picters an' things, so I jes' told her right...