Remarks on the English Language, in the Manner of Those of Vaugelas on the French: Being a Detection of Many Improper Expressions Used in Conversation, and of Many Others to be Found in Authors : to which is Prefixed a Discourse Addressed to His Majesty

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From for J. Bell, in the Strand, 1770 - Drama - 128 pages
 

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Page xlv - To where Fleet-ditch with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dykes ! than whom no sluice of mud With deeper sable blots the silver flood.
Page 48 - MILLAMANT Eh ! Filthy creature - what was the quarrel ? PETULANT There was no quarrel - there might have been a quarrel. WITWOUD If there had been words enough between 'em to have expressed provocation; they had gone together by the ears like a pair of castanets.
Page iv - I have paid no regard to authority. I have censured even our best penmen, where they have departed from what I conceive to be the idiom of the tongue, or where I have thought they violate grammar without necessity.
Page 62 - em three Times a Week, and meet, by Turns, at one another's Apartments, where they come together like the Coroner's Inqueft, to fit upon the murder'd Reputations of the Week.
Page 121 - If you were here, you would find three or four in the parlour, after dinner, whom, you would say, passed their afternoons very agreeable.
Page 64 - English tongue. which considered as English words, are not compounded, whatever they may be in the countries, where they were coined. We, therefore, say Ottomans and Germans in the plural: and no one ever yet took it into his head to say Ottomen or Germen. We ought, on the same principle, to say Mussulmans in the plural, and not Mus&ulmen.
Page xi - Confirma" mation of this Opinion, that in the old Poets •* both the Genitive and the Plural were longer '" by a Syllable than the original Word. Knitis "for Knight's in Chaucer, Leavis for Leaves in
Page v - I have myself no books; at least, not many more than what a church-going old woman may be supposed to have of devotional ones upon her mantlepiece: for, having always had a narrow income, it has not been in my power to make a collection without straightening myself. Nor did I ever see even the Abridgment of this Dictionary till a few days ago, when, observing it inserted in the catalogue of a Circulating Library, where I subscribe, I sent for it".
Page 8 - I know that custom often reconciles improprieties of this sort ; yet there are some cases where it never reconciles them entirely, and this appears to me to be one. I would therefore give my vote for different from, and would banish the expression of different to.
Page 46 - I could bear my part in discoursing, laughing, and being merry with you, as well as ever I could in my life. If you were here (and if wishes of more than one could bring you you would be here to-day) you would find three or four in the parlour after dinner, who, you would say, passed their afternoons as agreeably and as jocundly as any people you have this good while met with.

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