Joseph Priestley’s The Rudiments of English Grammar is a practical school grammar of English, first written for classroom use and later expanded with a substantial appendix of critical observations drawn from modern writers. The version summarized here is the third edition, printed in London in 1772, and it pairs a short catechism of definitions and rules with “Notes and Observations” meant for readers who already know the language well. Priestley writes as a working teacher and a Dissenting intellectual with wider scientific and theological interests, and the book carries both ambitions: to make English grammar simple enough for scholars and exact enough for writers.
“A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired.”
A Grammar Against the Latin Model
Priestley’s governing conviction is that English has been badly served by grammarians who imported the machinery of Latin wholesale. He finds it absurd that English should be taught a future tense at all, since English verbs undergo no change of termination to express one; the combination with shall or will deserves no more a place among tenses than combinations with do, have, can, or must. The optative mood and the perfect and pluperfect passive, he notes, were transferred from Greek into Latin on the same faulty principle, and by that logic Latin might as well have been given a dual number. Technical terms, he argues, should mark the actual modifications of words, not the combinations and orderings that belong to syntax. Custom of speaking is for him the original and only just standard of a language, and he is willing to defend forms that good writers and speakers plainly favour even when arbitrary rules condemn them.
The Preface: A School Grammar Expanded
Priestley opens by explaining why the Rudiments exists in its present shape. He wrote it first for classroom use, setting out the fundamental principles of English plainly. Wider reading in language generally, and in English particularly, then led him to gather material for a larger work, and he held back the smaller grammar until that larger one should be finished, expecting it to suggest improvements. Repeated requests for a reprint, and his absorption in studies of a very different nature, defeated that plan. He therefore republishes the grammar with improvements, adding as much of the collected material as may be practically useful to those who write the language, arranged as well as he can and appended under the title Notes and Observations for readers who have made some proficiency.
He keeps the question-and-answer method, persuaded it suits the master and is clearest to the scholar, and he keeps the old simplicity—making it in some respects simpler still, since he thinks simplicity suits the genius of English. What surprises him is how much of the Latin grammatical apparatus survives in English grammars, where it is awkward and superfluous, the kind of thing no man would have devised who had not first learned Latin. The absurdity has partly gone out of fashion, but enough remains to injure uniformity; the same reasoning that carried grammarians partway should have carried them further. English, he argues, has no more business with a future tense than with the whole system of Latin moods and tenses, since no modification of its verbs corresponds to one. Had we never heard of a future tense in another language, we should no more have named the combination with shall or will than those with do, have, can, or must. The only natural rule for technical terms of time is to apply them to the different modifications of words; it is wrong to confound the account of inflexions with the grammatical uses of combinations, of word order, or of words expressing relations equivalent to inflexions elsewhere. Depart from that rule and the true symmetry of grammar is lost, clogged with superfluous terms and divisions. The optative mood and the perfect and pluperfect passive tenses were absurdly carried from Greek into Latin with no corresponding verb forms; by the same licence the dual number might have entered Latin, and duo homines would make as good a dual as utinam amem makes an optative. He flatters himself future grammarians will owe him something for introducing this uniform simplicity.
He grants he may be thought to have leaned too far from the Latin idiom, but holds it evident that other grammarians have leaned too far toward the analogies of that language, against English usage and against languages more like English. The custom of speaking is the original and only just standard of any language; in every grammar it is enough to establish a rule even against the strongest analogies of the language itself. That custom, then, must carry weight in favour of forms to which the best writers and speakers are evidently prone, which violate no analogy, and which grammarians have disapproved only on abstract and arbitrary grounds. He has favoured no irregularity except where the genius of the language—not single examples but the general practice of writers and the almost universal custom of speakers—obliged him, and no further than that propensity, unchecked by arbitrary rules, will authorize.
If he has done his native tongue any essential service, he thinks it will come from detecting in time the many gallicisms that have insinuated themselves into the style of admired writers and injured the true idiom of English, contrary to its most established analogies. His collections, he dares say, will surprise many well acquainted with modern compositions—they surprise himself now that he sees them together—and the writers themselves will be surprised when the passages are pointed out; he does not suppose they deliberately adopted French forms, but fell into them inadvertently through much conversance with French authors. There is an advantage, too, in drawing examples from modern writers rather than from Swift, Addison, and others of the so-called classical period half a century back: we see the real character and turn of the language at present, and by comparison perceive which way it tends and what extreme to guard against. Some readers may smile at the books that passed through his hands while he made these collections, and he might easily have suppressed their names; but he is not ashamed to be known to read sometimes for amusement, and even whatever falls in his way. There is real advantage in collecting from books written hastily, where writers pay little attention to arbitrary rules and indulge the natural propensity that is the effect of general custom and of the language as commonly spoken. It is not from the writings of grammarians and critics that we can judge the real present state of any language, even as spoken in polite conversation.
Pronouns, Verbs, and the Parts of Speech
The catechism proper takes up the pronouns. The interrogative who has genitive whose and oblique whom; which, what, and whether do not decline, except that whose may serve as the genitive of which. A relative’s antecedent is the preceding noun to which it relates as an adjective to its substantive—Darius in “This is Darius whom Alexander conquered.” The demonstratives are this, that, other, and the same; this makes these, that makes those, and other makes others when it stands without its substantive.
A verb expresses what is affirmed of or attributed to a thing (I love; the horse neighs), and its subject is the person or thing concerning which the affirmation is made—Alexander in “Alexander conquered Darius.” Verbs are transitive or neuter: a transitive verb implies an object upon which its meaning passes, without which the sense is incomplete (to conquer, with Darius as object), while a neuter verb has no object distinct from its subject (to rest). The radical form is the one following to (to love). Verbs vary by tense and person as well as number. There are two tenses, present and preter; the first person preter is generally formed by adding -ed or -d to the first person present, though many verbs are irregular (awoke, thought). The second person singular adds -st or -est, the third singular present changes to -eth or -es, and all plural persons share the first-person-singular termination. These changes are dropped after if, though, e’er, before, whether, except, whatsoever, whensoever, and words of wishing—the “conjunctive form.” Participles are adjectives derived from verbs: present (ending -ing) and preterite (ending -ed, or irregular, as begun, dead, laden, sown). The radical form alone carries the force of a command; preceded by to, it is merely the name of an action. Auxiliary verbs (do, have, be, and the imperfect shall, will, can, may, must) fix time and circumstance; shall, will, can, may express no certain distinction of time, having absolute and conditional forms. Compound tenses fall into three orders according to whether the radical form, present participle, or preterite participle is joined, and are single, double, or triple according to the number of auxiliaries; all change of termination is confined to the first-named auxiliary.
Adverbs are contractions of sentences denoting manner or circumstance—place, time, quality. A preposition expresses relation (of, with, from, to). Conjunctions join sentences and show their dependence. Interjections are broken words denoting emotion. Easy tests sort the parts of speech: a substantive admits a or the or a known adjective before it; an adjective requires man or thing after it and admits comparison; a verb admits personal pronouns before it; adverbs answer How? How much? When? Where?; prepositions admit the oblique cases of pronouns after them.
Derivation follows. Nouns become verbs by lengthening a vowel (house→to house) or with no change at all (cuishioned, diademed, ribboned); verbs become substantives (a fright, a stroke). Noun endings include -er for the agent, -ing for the action, -th for abstracts, -ness, -head, -ship, -ry, -wick, -dom, -an, -ard, -ment, -age, -ee; diminutives add -in (goslin, lambkin, hillock, pickerel, rivulet). Adjective endings: -y, -ful (plenty), -some (plenty in less degree), -less (want), -ly (likeness), -ish (similitude or nation), -able (capacity). Verbs in -en derive from adjectives (lengthen, strengthen). Prefixes include ante- (before), anti- (against), contra-, circum- (about), de- (down), dis- (negation), il-/im-/ir- (not), preter- (beyond), ultra-, extra-, trans-, re-, super-, sub-.
The articles: a/an is indefinite, intimating one of a species but not one in particular; the is definite, limiting to particular persons or things; a noun with neither is generally unlimited (Man is born to trouble). Among auxiliaries, do makes an affirmation emphatic; be with the present participle expresses emphasis and precision, and with the preterite participle signifies suffering the action (I am loved). Shall in the first person and will in the rest simply foretell; will in the first and shall in the rest promise, threaten, or engage. Can signifies power.
Irregular Verbs and the Plural of Nouns
A catalogue of irregular verbs runs through forms such as threw/thrown, thrust, tread/trode/trodden, wear/wore/worn, weave/wove/woven, weep/wept, win/won, wind/wound, work/wrought, wring/wrung, and write/wrote/written.
The Conjunctive Form and Its Uses
Priestley turns to the conjunctive, or subjunctive, form of verbs, and his first observation concerns the word had, which often stands in for would have and carries the force of a conjunctive verb. “He had been Diogenes, if he had not been Alexander,” he notes, means “he would have been.” In this sense had precedes its nominative and the particle of doubt is dropped: “Had I done this, he would have escaped” is simply “if I had done this.” A sentence opening with the conjunctive form, he finds, has a peculiar elegance—Harris’s “Were there no difference, there would be no choice” is his example—and a double conjunctive in two corresponding clauses is more elegant still, as in Hume’s remark on a shining character had not the narrowness of his genius diminished its lustre. Sometimes the particles expressing supposition vanish before the conjunctive, the form itself conveying the uncertainty, as in Bolingbroke’s “Were those letters to fall into the hands of some ingenious persons.” The conjunctive may also follow the adverb though, as in Smollett’s Voltaire.
Mr. Johnson assigns no conjunctive form to the preter tense, but analogy, Priestley argues, seems to require that both tenses be put on a level. The form seems proper only where some doubt or hesitation is implied; when an event is absolutely certain, the usual change of terminations is retained. “We should have overtaken him though he did run,” he writes, is said when we do not know whether he ran; but on seeing him run, we say “though he ran.” Almost all irregularities of construction, he suggests, arise from the ellipsis of words originally inserted: run may be supposed in its radical form, requiring a preceding verb of doubt, the full sentence being “We shall overtake him though he should run.” An objection arises when one analyzes a conjunctive preterite by supplying the ellipsis—the rule holds only when the preter tense and the participle are the same, as in regularly inflected verbs, where “if thou lovedst” becomes “if thou shouldst have loved” or “hadst loved”; but “if thou drew” would have to become “if thou hadst drawn.” In fact the conjunctive is used for the auxiliary and another form, as in Hume’s “had been opened” for “would have been opened,” much like “they affirmed that it were injustice” for “would be injustice.” Though our forefathers paid strict regard to it, the form is much neglected by many of the best writers, Addison among them, and few are quite uniform, sometimes using both forms in the same sentence, as Harris and Swift do. Grammatical as it is said to be, it sometimes gives stiffness and harshness, as in Swift’s Tale of a Tub and in Ferguson. Originally, he adds, the two forms of the verb to be were used promiscuously, as in Genesis: “We be twelve brethren.”
Participles, Adjectives, and the Defect of Inflexions
On participles, Priestley notes that e is omitted before i to avoid a collision of vowels (loving), and that the final consonant is doubled when preceded by a single vowel and, in words of two syllables, when the accent falls on the latter (getting, forgetting). Many participles, losing the idea of time, become mere adjectives—charming youth, a loving couple, a settled design, a well appointed army—and there is great elegance in some of these. The termination ed is commonly contracted to t (time past), and sometimes dropped entirely when the verb ended in l and the words have wholly lost their participial use (content, corrupt). Many nouns derived from verbs end in ing like present participles, and the difference is often overlooked: “my horse’s running in the field” uses the noun and supposes the horse actually ran, whereas “my horse running to-day” uses the participle, asking whether it be proper that he should run, supposing he had not then run. Some early poets preserve the Saxon y prefixed, as Spenser’s ycleped, and Spenser also writes shright. Formerly the ed of the participle preterite was often dropped when the verb ended in e (“They are confederate against thee”), a form still common among the Scots, as in Hume’s “pronounce Gavin excommunicate,” and in situate for situated, especially among lawyers, and Milton’s elevate for elevated.
Since paucity of inflexions is the greatest defect of our language, Priestley urges that we take advantage of every variety good authors warrant, making a participle different from the preterite: “a book is written, not wrote”; “the ships are taken, not took.” This rule has not been sufficiently attended to—Hume writes “It was not wrote on parchments” and “had not yet wore off”; Smollett has “have forsook”; Ferguson “have bore.” In some cases the omission of n has prevailed so long it seems too late to restore it; broke has almost excluded broken. Bolingbroke affects a difference in spelling preterites and participles when they sound alike with the present—“never red Xenophon,” “I remember to have red”—which is particularly bad because the adjective is also spelled red; he writes “christianity has spred.” Mr. Hume spells the preterite the same way, as in “diffused knowledge every where, and begat.” Bolingbroke in one place affects variety in participles of the same verb, writing “would have wrote” where “written” was wanted.
Articles as Limiting Adjectives
The articles, Priestley argues, are strictly adjectives, since they require a following substantive whose meaning they limit and ascertain. Following French usage, the definite article is sometimes prefixed to town names—the Hague, the Havannah, the Berbices—and proper names used as common ones may take an article, as “an Achilles.” The article a becomes more emphatical with certain (“a certain man had two sons”), though this does not suit proper names; “one Fitzgerald” would be better than “a certain Fitzgerald.” Using one before a proper name particularizes it: “one Mr. Roberts” implies a stranger, while “Mr. Roberts” implies a person well known; prefixing one’s bare name to a performance shows presumption or affectation. Generally the article may be prefixed to the former of two words in the same construction, though the French always repeat it; for emphasis the article is often repeated in a series of epithets, and following the French manner it is sometimes repeated when the adjective is placed after the substantive because of a depending clause.
Since a without n is prefixed to a consonant, it ought also to precede a sounded h, yet many writers use an before that letter—“an half,” “an higher order.” A is sometimes put for every (“a hundred a year”) or for one (“so much a dozen”), and the French always use the article the in this construction. A nice distinction of sense is sometimes made by the use or omission of a: “with a little reverence” is positive, praise; “with little reverence” is negative, dispraise; similarly “few men” is diminutive, while “a few men” makes the most of them. Position makes a distinction too: “half a crown” means a piece of money of half a crown’s value, “a half crown” means a half-crown piece. The is often elegantly put for the possessive pronoun (“in the face,” that is, his face); some writers drop the before titles, writing “preface,” “introduction,” “dedication,” which is not the true English idiom. In applying ordinals to a series of kings, the is generally interposed—“Henry the first,” “Charles the second”—though some transpose it to “the first Henry,” a construction Priestley finds to have similarity and want of dignity. The sometimes distinguishes a person by an epithet, giving the idea of the only person to whom it can apply, as “the great man,” “the gentleman.” Where a word may be considered either proper or common, the may be prefixed at pleasure—“the Lord Darnly” or “Lord Darnly.” Formerly the was prefixed to the relative (“in the which”), and for greater emphasis degrees of comparison frequently take the article: “the oftener I read this author, the more I admire him.”
In abstract or contracted phrases articles are omitted—“he went on foot,” “by land,” “at sea”—probably dropped when the phrases became familiar; when words are used without any article, it is a pretty sure sign they are or have been in frequent use. When names of things are so circumstanced that articles are unnecessary, they are usually omitted, especially in conversation, as in speaking to children: “nurse,” “pappy,” “mamma.” In many other cases articles seem omitted where nothing but mere ellipsis can be discovered, as for conciseness or energy: “Have you trout in this river?” In some cases there seems peculiar elegance in adopting the universal sense by omitting the article, and in many cases articles are omitted in common conversation which seem to have propriety in writing or grave style—“At April, time might be gained.” In very familiar style the article is sometimes dropped after frequent use: “Give me here John Baptist’s head”; “John the Baptist’s head” would have more dignity.
Prepositions and Their Proper Government
On prepositions, the author confesses that all he has done in this difficult part of grammar is to make a few general remarks and give a collection of instances of improper use. A complete grammar would reduce every verb and adjective with its prepositions into tables, but most such tables would be of little use to Englishmen, who are generally accustomed to the right preposition and chiefly liable to mistakes where others have been mistaken before them. Different relations and senses must be expressed by different prepositions, even with the same verb or adjective: “converse with a person, upon a subject, in a house”; “disappointed of a thing” when we cannot get it, “disappointed in it” when we have it and find it does not answer expectation.
What the Notes and Observations Are For
The appendix is where the book’s real character shows. Priestley collects examples of doubtful and faulty usage from writers he admires—Hume above all, but also Addison, Swift, Smollett, Bolingbroke, Harris, and others—and corrects them without ceremony. His stated purpose is partly patriotic: he believes he has detected a great number of gallicisms that have crept into the style of justly admired authors and that injure the true idiom of English. He draws his examples from recent writing rather than from the “classical” age of Swift and Addison, so that readers may see the present turn of the language and judge which way it is tending. He even admits to quoting from books read merely for amusement, on the theory that hasty writers, paying little attention to rules, reveal the natural propensity of the language as it is commonly spoken. It is not from grammarians and critics, he says, that one can judge the real state of a tongue.
The Grammarian as Observer of Custom
Running through the whole book is a distinctive temperament: Priestley is a prescriptivist who distrusts prescription. He will fault Hume for separating an adverb from its verb in the French manner, for plural verbs attached to collective nouns like “the court of Rome were,” and for writing “it was not wrote” where “written” belongs—yet he insists throughout that where the general practice of writers and the almost universal custom of speakers support a form contrary to no analogy, the grammarian must yield. His treatment of the plural is a case in point: tradesmen say “twenty pound,” gentlemen say “ten carp,” and though the construction may be a harsh ellipsis, custom authorizes it. The book’s most engaging passages are often its most particular—the ambiguity of “I cannot find one of my books,” the difference between “half a crown” and “a half crown,” the nice distinction between “with a little reverence” and “with little reverence,” the observation that we may say “their design” but not “their head.” These are the notes of a man thinking about language as it is actually used, not as it ought to be.
A Reforming Grammar and Its Legacy
Priestley’s claim in the preface is modest but pointed: if he has done his native tongue any essential service, it will be by introducing a uniform simplicity into English grammar and by exposing the gallicisms of admired writers. The book belongs to a period when English was beginning to be described on its own terms rather than as a debased Latin, and Priestley’s insistence that custom outranks analogy, together with his willingness to cite living authors as evidence, places him among the more empirical students of the language in his century. Later grammarians would be more systematic and more confident in their rules; Priestley’s distinction is to have been candid about the limits of rule-making, and to have treated the speech of ordinary people as data rather than error.
