"Pronoun" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be necessary to explain to the uninitiated reader that the terms "he" and "she" are indifferently used at sea, in reference to craft, but when the masculine pronoun is applied it is understood to refer more especially to the commanding officer of the vessel; while the pronoun "she" ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Pure talk. If you're interested in Indians, stick around. Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"—I had known that before long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... personality herein, but in justice to the writer, it must be borne in mind that no attempt has been made for literary style; that the task imposed upon him was attempted solely to comply with the insistence of others and that the use of the first personal pronoun is the ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... conversation of others. This feeling gives one a freedom in telling his own personal history he could not have enjoyed without it. My story belongs to you as much as to me. De te fabula narratur. Change the personal pronoun,—that is all. It gives many readers a singular pleasure to find a writer telling them something they have long known or felt, but which they have never before found any one to put in words for them. An author does not always ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Miss Burton," he said, "if I protest against your using the pronoun you did. No one will ever be able to associate the word 'defeat' with you. I do not understand your philosophy; but I know it is far better than mine. While I admit the truth of your words that I do professionally shut my eyes as far as possible to all the ugly facts ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... I asked, adopting his pronoun. I had forgotten for the moment that boats belong to the ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... apology is needed for the constant recurrence of the personal pronoun in these pages, let it be said that the recital of personal incidents, without circumlocution, ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... who. These forms are incorrect unless the relative pronoun has been used previously in the sentence. "The colt, spirited and strong, and which was unbroken, escaped from the pasture." "John Smith, one of our leading merchants, and who fell from a window yesterday, died this ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... It was therefore optional with Shakspeare to employ the word either as a singular or plural, but not in the same sentence to do both: here, however, he was tied {121} to the singular, for, wanting a rhyme to contents, the nominative to presents must be singular, and that nominative was the pronoun of contents. Since, therefore, the plural die and the singular it could not both be referable to the same noun contents, by silently substituting die for dies, MR. COLLIER has blinded his reader and wronged his author. The purport of the passage ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... peculiar idiom in the Scotch this is frequently conjoined with the pronoun: as, "his lane," "my lane," "their lane," i. e., "by himself," "by myself," "by themselves." "Lang ten," the ten of trumps in Scotch whist. Lassie, lassock, a little girl. Lave, the remainder. Leatherin', beating, drubbing. Letten, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a dilemma. My modesty (?) is at variance with my love of verity. Oh, the inconvenience of that little pronoun, I! Would that I had in the first instance imitated the wily conduct of the bald-pated invader of Britain. How complacently might I not then have vaunted in the beginning, have caracoled through the middle, and glorified myself at the conclusion of this ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... dreadful possibilities of stumbling on 'conditional moods,' 'imperfect tenses,' 'singular numbers,'—I should have been too glad to put up with the safe spot for the sole of my foot though no larger than afforded by such a word as 'Conjunction,' 'possessive pronoun—,' secure so far from poor Tippet's catastrophe. Well, I ventured, and what did I find? This—which I copy from the book now—'If we love in the other world as we do in this, I shall love thee to eternity'—from 'Promiscuous Exercises,' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... turn, that retrenching all superfluities of pronoun and conjunction, and marching at once upon the meaning of the sentence, had in it a military and Spartan significance, which betrayed how difficult it often is for a man to forget that he had been ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... Majesty, should it be necessary to do so. I don't know whether I have mentioned it previously, but whenever anybody spoke to Her Majesty, they always addressed her as "Great Ancestor," and when referring to themselves, instead of the pronoun "I," they would say "Your slave." In all Manchu families a similar rule is observed, the pronouns "You" and "I" being dispensed with and the titles "Mother" and "Father" and the son's or daughter's ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... the root brimh (from which 'Brahman' is derived). Of this Brahman, thus already known (on the basis of etymology), the origination, sustentation, and reabsorption of the world are collateral marks. Moreover, in the Taitt. text under discussion, the relative pronoun—which appears in three forms, (that) 'from whence,' (that) 'by which,' (that) 'into which'—refers to something which is already known as the cause of the origin, and so on, of the world. This previous knowledge rests on the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... trained to discover the functions and relations of words as elements of an organic whole, his knowledge of the parts of speech is of little value. It is not because he cannot conjugate the verb or decline the pronoun that he falls into such errors as "How many sounds have each of the vowels?" "Five years' interest are due." "She is older than me." He probably would not say "each have," "interest are," "me am." One thoroughly familiar with the ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... demanded Uncle Edward with asperity. "Your pronoun 'he' stands for your antecedent 'Gilmer.' But what's the English tongue when we have a Jacobin in the house! Women like strange animals, and they are vastly fond of pitying. But you were always a home body, Jacqueline, and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... the front where all can see— "Now turn the spot-light right on me," He says, and sings in tones sonorous His own sweet halleluiah chorus. Refrain and verse are both the same— The pronoun I or his own name. He trumpets his worth with such windy tooting That louder it sounds than cowboys shooting. This man's a nuisance wherever he goes, For the world soon tires of the chap who blows. Whether mighty in station or hoer of corn, ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... fear it will hurt me' (wind means love, which is like the Simoom) 'Alas! it has struck me and I am sick. Why do ye bring the physician? Oh physician put back thy medicine in the canister, for only he who has hurt can cure me.' The masculine pronoun is always used instead of she in poetry out of decorum—sometimes even ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... of most of the conventions of the authors who have reported them. They do not, for example, say "me is;" their natural reply to "are you?" is "I are." One child, pronouncing sweetly and neatly, will have nothing but the nominative pronoun. "Lift I up and let I see it raining," she bids; and told that it does not rain, resumes, "Lift I up and let ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... uttering the concrete are very variable. Using the musical scale for reference it may be said that in ordinary speech they are generally of but one, or, at most, two notes. In animated discourse or passionate utterance the intervals may be greater. For illustration, let the pronoun "I" be uttered in a tone of interrogative surprise; a concrete with a rising interval will be the result. The more the surprise is emphasized, especially if indignation be conjoined with it, the greater will be the interval that the voice passes through in uttering the concrete. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... her husband should rather say "Mr. Smith," than "My husband;" but, above all, let her refrain from referring to her liege lord as "he," as if the whole wide world possessed no other mortal to whom that pronoun was applicable. Husbands should follow the same rules in referring to ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... the verb be or its forms, is, are, was, will be, etc. The attribute complement is usually a noun, pronoun, or adjective, although it may be a phrase or clause fulfilling the function of any of these parts of speech. It must not be confused with an adverb or an adverbial modifier. In the sentence, He is THERE, there is an adverb, not ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... be anything serious between Joe Hawkes and I," she said presently, with a little unnatural laugh. She was not quite sure of her pronoun. She looked anxiously at Dr. Ben's face. It was still troubled and overcast. Sally wondered uncomfortably if he would tell her mother that she was seeing Joe frequently. As it chanced, she and Joe had more than once encountered ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... young people have got into the personal-pronoun stage of human intercourse, there is but one thing left for the unfortunate third in the party to do. Yes, now that I think of it, there are two roles to be played. The usual conception of the part is to turn marplot—to spoil and ruin the others' dialogue—to put an ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Murphy interrupted with a slight emphasis on the pronoun. Unlike Mr. Reardon he employed the third person singular and did not say "that fella," for he had been raised in the United States ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... a special emphasis on the personal pronoun. Julius turned to his brother. The change for the better in the state of Lord Holchester's health made Geoffrey's position, at that moment, an embarrassing one. He had been positively forbidden to enter the house. His one excuse for setting that prohibitory ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... certain cases. Take Ruth, i. VV. 8 to 13, and imagine how those pronouns come in; it is exquisitely elegant, and makes the mouth of the LITTERATEUR to water. I am going to exercitate my pupil over those verses to-day for pronoun practice. ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... book had been of an enthralling interest to him. To-night it bores him. He has found himself unequal to the solving of the abstruse arguments it contains. One thought seems to have dulled all others. He is leaving to-morrow! He is leaving her to-morrow! Oh! surely it is more than that curt pronoun can contain. He is leaving, in a few short hours, his life, his hope, his one small chance of heaven upon earth. How much she had been to him, how strong his hoping even against hope had been, he never knew till now, when all is swept out ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... to YOU," he said, with his eyes on Mosby, and slightly accenting the pronoun with a tap of his revolver butt on the bar. "Ye don't ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... neglect to add that there was another mode of forming the genitive, namely, by the possessive pronoun, as the king his palace. "A fly that flew into my mistress her eye," is the title ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... The pronoun thrilled Bob with pleasure. It meant the sweeping aside of the last film of distrust and the restoration of the old man's former confidence and friendship. For days Willie had slowly been reaching the conviction that if fraud had been practised Tiny's nephew had ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... that ye seek Jesus who was crucified. That the women as well as the soldiers were present at the descent of this angel, appears not only from there being nobody else, by whom these uncommon circumstances could have been related, but also by the pronoun personal ye, inserted in the original Greek, which in that language is never done, unless it be emphatically to mark such a distinction, or antithesis, as there was on this occasion, between them and the Roman guard. Here, ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... So with the words 'husband' and 'wife'; we hear them every day in commonest speech—'the coachman and his wife,' or 'Sally Jones's husband,'—but I take it this is when we stand outside. That wonderful little possessive pronoun MY has a great, thrilling power. 'My husband' will be as fine to your ears as 'il mio marito,' which has, after all, a slippery, uncertain sound; ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... sense, it may sometimes relate to the person of the Son; and in that sense it would be taken personally; as, for instance, were we to say, "The Son is the begotten 'Who is,'" inasmuch as "God begotten is personal." But taken indefinitely, it is an essential term. And although the pronoun "this" [iste] seems grammatically to point to a particular person, nevertheless everything that we can point to can be grammatically treated as a person, although in its own nature it is not a person; as we may ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... she went into the class; and on meeting Miss Pugsley's cold greenish brown eye, what she did know seemed to evaporate from the top of her head, leaving a total blank. She stumbled and floundered; she did not know what an antecedent was, and she could not remember ever to have heard of a reciprocal pronoun. ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... an intemperate haste, and like many another rebel to the English tongue, she found a proper pronoun would not serve her for ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... no, not my name, I feel sure.' He accentuated the possessive pronoun strongly, and then proceeded to explain the accentuation, smiling more and more amiably as he did so. 'No, not my name; my brother's—my brother's, ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... adverbs are subject to inflection for number and person. Similar inflections have, to some extent, been observed in certain islands of the Pacific Ocean, but have not hitherto been reported in Australia. I have also discovered two forms of the dual and plural of the first personal pronoun, a specialty which has likewise been found in Polynesian and North American dialects. Traces of a double dual were noticed by Mr. Threlkeld at Lake Macquarie, New South Wales, and traces of a double plural by Mr. Tuckfield in the Geelong tribe; but the prevalence of ...
— The Gundungurra Language • R. H. Mathews
... to know the meaning of the word before one searched for it! The grammars were written in a barbarous Latin of inconceivably difficult style. Can any man now readily understand the following definition of "pronoun," taken from a book intended {664} for beginners, published in 1499? "Pronomen . . . significat substantiam seu entitatem sub modo conceptus intrinseco permanentis seu habitus et ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... some again that say, He did it with uttering five solemn chosen words: and some, with rehearsing the same words afterward again. Some will have it, that, when Christ did speak those five words, the material wheaten bread was pointed by this demonstrative pronoun hoc: some had rather have, that a certain vagum individuum, as they term it, was meant thereby. Again, others there be that say dogs and mice may truly and in very deed eat the body of Christ; ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... shadow, is necessarily a very personal thing. Without the person with which it is associated it could not exist. Therefore, I feel that it is appropriate to present throughout this paper a liberal use of the pronoun ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... name was lost in the dim mists of boyhood, the origin and fitness of his nickname were apparent after two minutes' conversation with him. Buzz Werner was called Buzz not only because he talked too much, but because he was a braggart. His conversation bristled with the perpendicular pronoun, and his pet phrase ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... order to remove such unbelief from the mind of Noah and the righteous, he repeats with stress the pronoun, "And I, behold, I do bring." Afterward he clearly adds that he will destroy all flesh that is under heaven and in the earth; for he excludes here the fishes whose realm is widened by the waters. This passage tends ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... were many and yet but one. Though plural they were singular. The subjects of impersonal verbs, they represented the pronoun in such expressions as: it rains; it thunders. "It" was Elohim. Already among nomad Semites monotheism had begun. Yet with this distinction. Each tribe had separate sets of Its that guided, guarded, and scourged. Omnipresent but not omnipotent, any humiliation to the ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... gain by so doing, you have no right to make any one else say words he did not say. If you leave out part of the passage, show the omission by dots; and in such a case, if you have to supply words of your own, as for example a noun in place of a pronoun, use square brackets, thus []. On the following page are examples of a convenient form of ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... sacred name of God was Hu[132]—a name which, although it is supposed, by Bryant, to have been intended by them for Noah, will be recognized as one of the modifications of the Hebrew tetragrammaton. It is, in fact, the masculine pronoun in Hebrew, and may be considered as the symbolization of the male or generative principle in nature—a sort of modification of the ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... returned carelessly, accenting the pronoun as though the whole corps were concerned. "A lot of his men ran back to him and put him on my horse. I simply led ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... room twirl under his feet. How one little pronoun can destroy a man! In his agony he saw Mrs. Kent and Kathleen sit down on the big couch, and painfully found his ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... daylight at the forge, and even in the summer his leisure minutes were few and far between. But he carried his Greek grammar in his hat, and often found a chance, while he was waiting for a large piece of iron to get hot, to open his book with his black fingers, and go through a pronoun, an adjective, or part of a verb, without being noticed ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... enclitics. The negative not was enclitic after the verb, and this gave us our shan't, don't, won't, &c. Dr. Johnson held the not to be too important a qualification to leave unaccented. Again, where prepositions made a pronoun enclitic, the old accent is perishing. For it, which used to be pronounced forrit as one word, is now generally spoken faw it, as two. The result of such conscious pedantries is not only a great ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 1 (Oct 1919) • Society for Pure English
... of steps supply a verb after the pronoun "I" that sets forth the thought of each ...
— A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible - Second Edition • Frank Nelson Palmer
... may change their forms to indicate some change in sense or use, as, is, are; was, were; who, whose, whom; farmer, farmer's; woman, women. This is called /inflection. The inflection of a noun, adjective, or pronoun is called its /declension, that of a ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... rendered the "Great-Tree People,"—literally, "those of the great log." It is derived from karonta, a fallen tree or piece of timber, with the suffix kowa or kona, great, added, and the verb-forming pronoun prefixed. In the singular number it becomes Niharontakowa, which would be understood to mean "He is an Oneida." The name, it is said, was given to the nation because when Dekanawidah and Hiawatha first went to meet its chief, they ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... Secocoeni's town, accompanied by a fresh set of interpreters, and had a long interview with Secocoeni. The chief's Prime Minister or "mouth," Makurupiji, speaking in his presence, and on his behalf and making use of the pronoun "I" before all the assembled headmen of the tribe, gave an account of the interview between Commandant Ferreira in the presence of that gentleman, who accompanied the commission and Secocoeni, in almost the same words as had been used by the interpreters ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... The pronoun sounded ominous to him as soon as he had uttered it. But it acted like magic upon Maud. She lifted a bright glance through her tears and said, like a happy child to whom a new game has been proposed, "What shall ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... I-uns married un." "Have you'uns seed any stray shoats?" asked a passer: "I-uns's uses about here." "Critter" means an animal—"cretur," a fellow-creature. "Longsweet-'nin'" and "short sweet'nin'" are respectively syrup and sugar. The use of the indefinite substantive pronoun un (the French on), modified by the personals, used demonstratively, and of "done" and "gwine" as auxiliaries, is peculiar to the mountains, as well on the Wabash and Alleghany, I am told, as in Tennessee. The practice of dipping—by which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... to ask of whom he spoke. The pronoun was as final and definitive as his "since." Never have I heard such tenderness as he gave to its utterance. Nor such desolation as dimmed his voice when ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... compositions, I suppose, a personal narrative is the most wearying to the writer, if not to the reader; egotistical talk may be pleasant enough, but, commit it to paper, the fault carries its own punishment. The recurrence of that everlasting first pronoun becomes a real stumbling-block to one at last. Yet there is no evading it, unless you cast your story into a curt, succinct diary; to carry this off effectively, requires a succession of incidents, more varied ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... YOU fared?" inquired the captain, whom I found luxuriously reclining in our mound of litter. And the accent on the pronoun, the heightened colour of the speaker's face, and the contained excitement in his tones, advertised me at once that I had not been alone ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... served in my Lord of Essex's army, but he has never seen you. Moreover, he was to be at the squire's to-day helping to stack his corn. Ben, do you tell Patience that he"—again taking refuge in a pronoun—"is a gentleman in danger, and she must see to his safety for an hour or two till ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or the other of these classes. ger asks: Which two? Brage answers: Diction and meter. What diction is used in poetry? There are three sorts of poetic diction. Which? One is to name everything by its own name; another is to name it with a pronoun, but the third sort of diction is called kenning (a poetical periphrasis or descriptive name); and this sort is so managed that when we name Odin, or Thor or Tyr, or any other of the asas or elves, we add to their name a reference to some other asa, or we make mention of some of his works. ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... become reconciled to the distasteful necessity of talking about himself, he suggested an adjournment to his rooms, where he would perhaps suffer less embarrassment by reason of his unavoidable use of the personal pronoun. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... voice, and with an air of anxious simplicity, Doddle began, 'Article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection, outerjection, beginning with ies in the plural—as, baby, babies; lady, ladies; hady, hadies. Please, sir, isn't that last one ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... chilled, and seems to freeze in my veins. I try to move, but my body is still, and I cannot even cry out. After a while the spirit passes on, and I say to myself shudderingly, "That was Death. I wonder if he has taken her." The pronoun stands for my Teacher. ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... Supreme Being was only six feet high, and that the sun was just four miles from the earth. [17] George Fox had raised a tempest of derision by proclaiming that it was a violation of Christian sincerity to designate a single person by a plural pronoun, and that it was an idolatrous homage to Janus and Woden to talk about January and Wednesday. His doctrine, a few years later, was embraced by some eminent men, and rose greatly in the public estimation. But at the time of the Restoration ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seems to me equally obvious. But the former contingency—the gross misapprehension of the public, even the wiser public—has been astounding. He has been read in a narrow, literal, bourgeois spirit. The personal pronoun, which he uses so freely, has been taken to stand for the private individual Walt Whitman, so that he has been looked upon as a compound of egotism and licentiousness. His character has been traduced, and his purpose in the ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... in Italian, and meaning in Venetian, You! Heigh! To talk in Cio ciappa is to assume insolent familiarity or unbounded good fellowship with the person addressed. A Venetian says Cio a thousand times in a day, and hails every one but his superior in that way. I think it is hardly the Italian pronoun, but rather a contraction of Veccio (vecchio), Old fellow! It is common with all classes of the people: parents use it in speaking to their children, and brothers and sisters call one mother Cio. It is a salutation between friends, who ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... the masculine pronoun in speaking of both the young birds; but I knew nothing as to the sex of either of them, though I came finally to believe that one was a male and the other ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... no better than dross! What a liberal confounding of those pedantic distinctions of meum and tuum! or rather what a noble simplification of language (beyond Tooke), resolving these supposed opposites into one clear, intelligible pronoun adjective!—What near approaches doth he make to the primitive community,—to the extent of one half of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... do?" asked Betty, feeling that she had earned a right to couple herself with Hamilton and me by the pronoun "we." ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... is I, this individual, Mr. Editor, for I would not assume your grand editorial pronoun) should like to know how the Constitution would have the young officer dress. Surely it was entirely proper and becoming that he should appear in full regimental cap, coat, boots, spurs, and all, full fledged, just as he ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... that is what made him love me," answered Fanny, never calling her lover by his name, but making the little personal pronoun a very sweet word by the tone in which she uttered it. "He was disappointed in me last year, he told me, but you said good things about me and though he did n't care much then, yet when he lost you, and came ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... universal case), as far as nouns, adjectives, and articles are concerned. Their pronouns offer the sole survival of declension by case endings. Here France, the runner-up, is a trifle slow in the possession of a real, live dative case of the pronoun (acc. le, la, les; dat. lui, leur). England wins by a neck with one universal oblique case (him, her, them). This insidious suggestion is not meant to endanger the entente cordiale; ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... you do! I beg your pardon, Zurich—perhaps in my thoughtlessness I have wounded you. I used the wrong pronoun. I did not mean to say 'I'—much less 'you'—in reference to who should hollo 'Halves!' to our sleeping benefactor. 'We' was the word ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... pronoun is thic, or more properly dhic; "dhic meaed" means "that meadow." Suent means pleasant or proper—really both. It always has a sense of right consequence, of one thing following another as it ought. "Suently" would be "duly." But that now is common to the West, and will ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... is the possessive pronoun "his"; and [Hebrew: אביו], Abiu (which we read "Abif") means "of my father's." Its full meaning, as connected with the name of Khūrūm, no doubt is, "formerly one of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of her simple Raveloe theology fell rather unmeaningly on Silas's ears, for there was no word in it that could rouse a memory of what he had known as religion, and his comprehension was quite baffled by the plural pronoun, which was no heresy of Dolly's, but only her way of avoiding a presumptuous familiarity. He remained silent, not feeling inclined to assent to the part of Dolly's speech which he fully understood—her recommendation that ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... visibly flattered by the painter's manner and by his well-chosen emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "Quite right"—he said approvingly—"quite right, old boy." He turned to the novelist—"These painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to have a few hours for a last touch or two before I come around." He laughed pompously at his ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... this construction of a noun or pronoun with a participle, standing independently of any other word in the sentence, and representing a subordinate clause, is very common in French. It is the exact equivalent of ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... to darlin' Cap'n Sproul this evenin'," Hiram remarked, persisting still in his satiric use of the feminine pronoun. "If you'll put on your bonnet, Mis' Look, we'll all sa'nter acrost to the Cap'n's and see that Louada Murilla gets hers. Near's I can find out, the rules of this special post-office is that all love-letters to us pass through ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... sentences of 'Paradise Lost'; the linking of the verb to its often distant nominative, of the relative to its distant antecedent, of the agent to the object of the transitive verb, of the preposition to the noun or pronoun which it governed, the study of variations in mood and tense, the transpositions often necessary to bring out the true grammatical structure of a sentence—all this was to my young mind a discipline of the highest value, and a source of unflagging delight. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... you," said Aunt Horsingham, with an emphasis on the pronoun. "By-the-way, what is your address in Wales, that ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... ceremonies at the court of Berlin, one of the most well-to-do and jovial of bons vivants, and who up to that time had stood so high in the favor of the reigning family that his sovereign was accustomed to address him by his Christian name, and by the so familiar equivalent pronoun in German ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... horse here for sixteen pounds," remarked Batouch, using the pronoun "tu," as is the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... the runes from which we obtain the name Cynewulf. The runes are at once a word and a letter, in the same way that our letter I is also the symbol for the first personal pronoun. In the places where the meaning fits, Cynewulf has written the runes that ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... constitutes another circumstance, which renders our language more simple, and more easy to acquire; and at the same time contributes to the poetic excellence of it; as by adding a masculine or feminine pronoun, as he, or she, other nouns ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... in the use of the word you as a singular pronoun that the popularising of what were once supreme distinctions is most markedly illustrated. This speaking of a single individual in the plural was originally an honour given only to the highest—was the reciprocal of the imperial "we" assumed by such. Yet now, by being applied to ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... difficulty has presented itself in preparing the succeeding chapters, and that is the lack in the English language of a pronoun including both genders. The English impersonal pronoun, being masculine in form, is liable to create the impression that "he" or "his" exclusive of "she" or "her" is the subject of discourse. This is not so. Generally the masculine pronoun is used impersonally in this discussion, and the discerning ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... Mr. Grout says: "So strong is the influence of this inclination to concord produced by the repetition of initials, that it controls the distinction of number, and quite subordinates that of gender, and tends to mould the pronoun after the likeness of the initial element of the noun to which it refers; as, Izintombi zake zi ya hamba, 'The daughters of him they do walk.'" These characteristics appear in the formation of the Creole French, in connection with another childlike habit of the negro, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... woman who has the slightest pretensions to delicacy of sentiment, or liberality of mind. I should expect to find this vulgar prejudice only among the downright dames, who talk of my good man, and lay a particular emphasis on the possessive pronoun my; who understand literally, and expect that their spouses should adhere punctually to every coarse article ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... why he said "Pooh!" It merely notes, apropos of Miss Dickenson's last words, that the first person plural pronoun, used as a dual by a lady to a gentleman, sometimes makes hay of the thirdness of their respective persons singular. But if it had done so, this time, "Pooh!" was a weak ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... tone of Kolosoff, the bull-like, sensual, figure of old Korchagin, the French phrases of the Slavophile maiden, the ceremonious faces of the governess and the tutor. But above all, he was disgusted with the pronoun "him" that Missy had used. Nekhludoff was always wavering between two different relations he sustained toward Missy. Sometimes he looked at her as through blinking eyes or by moonlight, and then she seemed to him beautiful, fresh, pretty, clever and natural. At other times he looked at her as ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... a color, and leave a very small part. Behead, and leave a verb signifying "to strike." Behead again, and leave a pronoun. Curtail, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... of the verb in the past and future tneses, for immediate, proximate, and more or less remote times of the performance of the action,[8] it is often found convenient, especially when speaking in the dual or plural, to prefix a complete pronoun from the table of pronouns. Thus, instead of saying, Bumulbenli, a native frequently expresses it, Ngulli bumulben. Again, instead of saying, Bumulgiriniguna, he would use, Ngeaniguna bumulgiri. This leaves the termination of the ...
— The Wiradyuri and Other Languages of New South Wales • Robert Hamilton Mathews
... echoed; and the inflection of the pronoun might have flattered him had he not reflected that it was impossible she could have understood his allusion. And now she bethought her that she had not thanked him—and the debt was a heavy one. He had come to her aid ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... and in general, all those Songs of Scripture which the Saints of following Ages may assume for their own: Such are the 1st, the 8th, the 19th, and many others. Some Psalms may be apply'd to our Use by the Alteration of a Pronoun, putting {246} They in the place of We, and changing some Expressions which are not suited to our Case into a Narration or Rehearsal of God's Dealings with others: There are other Divine Songs which cannot properly be accommodated to our Use, and ...
— A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody • Isaac Watts
... laziness—that I have given you the work I ought to have done myself. My reply would be that it was not my work. If a man happens to be born to a job he is not in the least fitted for, that's the affair of Providence. Providence bungled it when he, she, or it—take which pronoun you like—[Greek: tyche], as you and I know, is feminine—made me a landowner. My proper job was to dig up and decipher what is left of the Greeks. And if any one says that the two jobs are not tanti, and the landowning job is more important than the other, ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ensued, till Winifred, to her great relief, spied the feminine pronoun, but could not fully satisfy Mr. Kendal that the ups and downs were insufficient for the word him; and each scrawl was discussed as though it had been a cuneiform inscription, until he had been nearly argued into believing in the lesser evil. He then was persuaded that the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... occasion offers, either in public or private, by drinking to each other and exclaiming, "thy health," at the same time striking their glasses together.—This is called drinking "Duus:"—they are then, "Duus Brodre," (thou brothers,) and ever afterwards use the pronoun "thou," to each other, it being regarded as more familiar than "De," (you). Father and mother, sister and brother, say thou to one another—without regard to age or rank. Master and mistress say thou to their ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... accustomed to regard Jack Frost as a member of the male sex that they could not get out of the habit. So they continually used the masculine pronoun, although the result was ludicrous. Visitors used to be quite electrified when Rilla referred casually to "Jack and his kitten," or told Goldie sternly, "Go to your mother and get ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to you." Austin slightly stressed the pronoun. He had taken a reasonless liking for the young man, who from the first had smiled into his frowning face, and treated him as he treated others. Or perhaps Austin liked him because, although the Boy did a good deal of "gassin' with the gang," he had ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Barstow that the man who wrote them had "something in him." Two of the sketches in particular he thought promising. One of them was a burlesque report of an egotistical lecturer who was referred to as "Professor Personal Pronoun." It closed by stating that it was "impossible to print his lecture in full, as the type-cases had run out of capital I's." But it was the other sketch which settled Goodman's decision. It was also a burlesque report, this time ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I never use the first Personal pronoun, like the Monarch LOUIS, Who said (in French—a tongue I deem accurst), "L'etat, c'est moi." My conscience, clear and dewy, Tells me that, as a Kaiser, I am a very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... descends); then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess. iv. 15-17). It was the frequent use of the pronoun "we" that had confused them—we who remain, we who are alive. The Thessalonians had inferred from this that the second coming of Christ would take place in their day. Hence, to correct this impression Paul thus writes in his second epistle. The two verses preceding ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... under my body and bring it into subjection,'" quoted Dr. Burge, emphasizing the personal pronoun. "The Apostle declares that his own immortal individuality alone controls his members,—and why? 'lest, when I have preached unto others, I myself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... have heard of this Thyrston. And while I do not criticize, yet I cannot entirely agree with your improper use of the pronoun WHOM, and oh my dear sir", said Colombo, "those two VERYS would surely—oh, most surely—be mentioned in ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... devotion. All our splendid projects were thickset with the first personal pronoun. We both could write, and all that we said in general terms was reflected in the particular in our minds; it was ourselves we saw, and no others, writing and speaking that moving word. We had already produced manuscript and passed the initiations ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... so long ago, ages and ages,—when you came to see—" She paused a little, and then spoke the personal pronoun that tells the whole story, for a woman can say "him" in such a way as to betray unspeakable heights of adoration or abysses of loathing. She went on slowly. "You were not one of my friends then; how could you be, if there existed anything in ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... person singular of the personal pronoun, and not until comparatively late in life did I learn to use "I" and "me" in the place of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the pronoun "I" used in this communication? What position did Mr. Felix Adams hold toward this young girl qualifying him to make use of such language after her marriage ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... by Maria never calling her anything except "you," and referring to her as "she" and "her." The woman, in fact, became a pronoun for the child, who in her honesty and loyalty could never put another word in the place which had belonged to the ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... tender emphasis on the concluding pronoun which quite upset Clorinda. She allowed the carrots to fall back in the pan of water, and seated herself on a stool near by—if anything serious was coming she would receive it with dignity befitting ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... it over, I am dismayed at finding how feebly it suggests the bitterness and the greatness of the sacrifice of our men. As the book is written from an entirely personal point of view, the use of the first personal pronoun is of course inevitable, but I trust that the narration of my experience has been used only as a lens through which the great and glorious deeds of our men may be seen by others. I have refrained, as far as possible, except where circumstances seemed to demand it, from mentioning the names ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... of divorcing from its natural object and transferring to another object the direct statement about light implied in the word 'light,' may be answered without difficulty. The passage under discussion runs[125], 'which above this heaven, the light.' The relative pronoun with which this clause begins intimates, according to its grammatical force[126], the same Brahman which was mentioned in the previous passage, and which is here recognised (as being the same which was mentioned before) through its connexion with heaven; hence the word ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... The name which he preferred himself was that of "Son of Man," an apparently humble title, but one which connected itself directly with the Messianic hopes. This was the title by which he designated himself,[1] and he used "The Son of Man" as synonymous with the pronoun "I," which he avoided. But he was never thus addressed, doubtless because the name in question would be fully applicable to him only on the day ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... for the most part of a very general character, being evidently arranged with reference to the service of song in the sanctuary. Throughout this book the divine name Jehovah prevails; the name Elohim, God, being rarely used except in connection with a pronoun or some epithet—my ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... The pronoun referred to Le Maitre. The remark was perhaps prompted by natural pity, but it was so instantly agreed to by all on the vessel that the chorus had the air of propitiating the ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... apply the "you" to those only who were out of bed and in Covent Garden market on the night of conflagration, instead of the audience or the discerning public at large, all of whom are intended to be comprised in that comprehensive and, I hope, comprehensible pronoun. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... spoken pronoun came from Mistress Forrester, who seemed checked by the guest's quick ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... said quietly. She did not use the word "they." Those others did not count as far as she was concerned. Her use of the pronoun ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... you hold her principles," said Tom, indicating Lois rather awkwardly by the pronoun rather than in any more definite ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... not yet exhausted his moral problem. How, if the maid were my mother, wife or benefactress? Once more he gives his unflinching answer. Justice still requires of me in the interests of mankind to save the more valuable life. "What magic is there in the pronoun 'my' to overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?" My mother may be a fool, a liar, or a thief. Of what consequence then, is it that she is "mine"? Gratitude ought not to blind me to my duty, though she have ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... honor if he had made a false or an incomplete quotation. In one of the notes to "Don Juan," speaking of Voltaire, he had quoted those famous words:—" Zaire, vous pleurez;" but being accustomed at that time to make great use of the familiar pronoun thou, as in the case in Italy, his quotation ran: "Zaire, tu pleures." But he hastened to write to Murray, "Voltaire wrote: Zaire, vous ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the revision to "I hurry amain," with the present tense of the following verbs. The pronoun "his" in line ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... pardon. I humbly beg your pardon, as Mary says, but I can't help laughing to think how she's outwitted us." (She was going to have said, "outwitted you," but changed the pronoun.) ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the first personal pronoun "I" when writing as Blank Company. "We" is the proper pronoun. Where a personal reference is necessary, "the writer" may be used; but even this should ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... my life—and in the use, of the possessive pronoun here and elsewhere, let it signify also the life of my life-partner—is beyond the range of ordinary experience, since it is immune from the ferments which seethe and muddle the lives of the many, I am assured ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... see him—I think the masculine pronoun is permissible—you'll see what I mean, sir. It's this Lord Koreff, the Marshal. He came here on business, and had to bring the king along, for fear somebody else would grab him while he was gone. The whole object of Durendalian politics, as I understand, is to get possession ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... which some working is supplied, 3 are wrong. C. H. begins with the rash assertion that under the given conditions "the sum is impossible. For," he or she adds (these initialed correspondents are dismally vague beings to deal with: perhaps "it" would be a better pronoun), "10 is the least possible number of pictures" (granted): "therefore we must either give 2 x's to 6, or 2 o's to 5." Why "must," oh alphabetical phantom? It is nowhere ordained that every picture "must" have 3 marks! FIFEE sends ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... which we render "for the transgression of my people was he stricken," and in the margin, "was the stroke upon him," the Jews read "for the transgression of my people was the stroke upon them." And what they allege in support of the alteration amounts only to this, that the Hebrew pronoun is capable of a plural as well as of a singular signification; that is to say, is capable of their construction as well as ours.* And this is all the variation contended for; the rest of the prophecy they read as we do. The probability, therefore, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... (sentence), also coition; Al-Mausl the conjoined, a grammatical term for relative pronoun ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... a part of a large organization one should use "We" instead of "I." A firm acts collectively, no one except the president has a right to the pronoun of the first person, and he (if he is wise) seldom avails himself of it. If the matter is so near personal as to make "We" somewhat ridiculous "I" should, of course, be used instead. But one should be consistent. ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... I feel that I may cast off some of the forms and solemnities necessary to an editorial introduction, and, assuming a simpler and more personal pronoun, ask the reader, who shall feel the full charm of Dorothy's bright wit and tender womanly sympathy, to remember the thanks due to my fellow-servant, whose patient, single-hearted toil has placed these letters ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... features, a light olive complexion, with a strong dash of red in each cheek, full red lips, and hair of almost raven blackness. Like lightning the thought flashed through Quincy's mind, "What a contrast to my Alice!" for he always used the pronoun when he ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... in a rather compromising way, Mr. Wrandall. The pronoun 'we' is somewhat general, if you will permit me to say so. Do you expect me to discuss my findings in the presence of Mrs. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... struggling with the parsing and analysis of a certain portion of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," a mysterious patch of light appeared dancing about on the wall and ceiling, attracting the attention of the whole class, and causing the boy just told to "go on" to describe "man" as a personal pronoun, and to put a direct object after the verb ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... send you [FOOTNOTE: In addressing Franchomme Chopin makes use of the pronoun of the second person singular.] the letter from Schlesinger and another for him. Read them. He wishes to delay the publication, and I cannot do so. If he says NO, give my manuscripts to Maho [FOOTNOTE: ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... early phenomenon of child mental development is the emphasis laid on "meum" and "tuum," mine and yours. The child is a thoroughgoing individualist in feelings, conceptions, and language. The first personal pronoun is ever on his lips and in his thought. Only as culture arises and he is trained to see how disagreeable in others is excessive emphasis on the first person, does he learn to moderate his own excessive egoistic tendency. Is it not a fact that the studied evasion ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... that we have a clue," she said, identifying herself with the Government now by the use of the pronoun. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... to learn that the pronoun leur is used for persons, but also for things, while ou and en are used for things and sometimes ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... out upon a ledge of rock near her feet. "Mrs. Acton was good enough to imply that she had been expecting me more or less anxiously for several days," he rejoined in a tone of reproach. "In fact, she used the plural pronoun, which led me to believe that somebody else must have shared her anxiety. She did not, however, point out who it was that ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... reviewers were ignorant of the authorship of "The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy" (1753) and "The Invisible Spy" (1755). Twenty years later, in fact, a writer in the "Critical Review" used the masculine pronoun to refer to the author of "Betsy Thoughtless." It is quite certain that Mrs. Haywood spent the closing years of her life in great obscurity, for no notice of her death appeared in any one of the usual magazines. She continued to publish until the end, and with two ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... beginning of the thirteenth century, this dialect had thrown off most of the old inflexions, and had become almost as flexionless as the English of the present day. Let us note a few of the more prominent changes. —The first personal pronoun Ic or Ich loses the guttural, and becomes I. —The pronouns him, them, and whom, which are true datives, are used either as datives or as objectives. —The imperative plural ends in eth. "Riseth up," Chaucer makes one of his characters ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... much as any nation; but we think that it must be spoken of symbolically and indirectly. We do not consider a man egotistical, if he will only give himself a feigned name, and write of his experiences in the third person. But if he uses the personal pronoun, he is thought to be shameless. There are even people who consider it more decent to say "one feels and one thinks," than to say "I feel and I think." The thing that I most desire, in intercourse with ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... marmalade, finnan-haddie or kippered herring for breakfast; tea,—of course we never touch coffee in the morning" (here Francesca started with surprise); "porridge, and we like them well boiled, please" (I hope she noted the plural pronoun; Salemina did, and blanched with envy); "minced collops for luncheon, or a nice little black-faced chop; Scotch broth, pease brose or cockyleekie soup at dinner, and haggis now and then, with a ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... left symbol of this figure appears to stand for vase, and is also used to indicate a pronoun or article when joined to another symbol, as here shown. (See op. cit., ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... "winged cat" in one of the farmhouses in Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr. Gilian Baker's. When I called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone a-hunting in the woods, as was her wont (I am not sure whether it was a male or female, and so use the more common pronoun), but her mistress told me that she came into the neighborhood a little more than a year before, in April, and was finally taken into their house; that she was of a dark brownish gray color, with a white spot on her throat, and white feet, and had a large bushy ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the strict tenets of his sect, "thou-ing" and "thee-ing" all those whom he addressed; but he had assented to an omission in this matter on the part of his daughter, recognizing the fact that there could be no falsehood in using a mode of language common to all the world. "If a plural pronoun of ignoble sound," so he said, "were used commonly for the singular because the singular was too grand and authoritative for ordinary use, it was no doubt a pity that the language should be so injured; but ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... long ago as 1836 printed at his own cost a little glossary of the county's provincialisms. The book, publicly printed in 1853, was, of course, superseded by Mr. Parish's admirable collection, but Mr. Cooper showed the way. One of his examples of the use of the West Sussex pronoun en, un, or um might be noted, especially as it involves another quaint confusion of sex. En and un stand for him, her or it; um for them. Thus, "a blackbird flew up and her killed 'n"; that is to say, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... notes, one from each of them, accepting the invitation. Cheesacre wrote in the singular number, altogether ignoring Captain Bellfield, as he might have ignored his footman had he intended to take one. The captain condescended to use the plural pronoun. "We shall be so happy to come," said he. "Dear old Cheesy is out of his little wits with delight," he added, "and has already begun to polish off ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... was not long before the wild people seized on them and strip's them, and those that had beards they knocked their braines out, and (as I remember) did eat them; but the queen saved T. Stump, and the other boy. Stump threw himself into the river Pronoun to have drowned himself, but could not sinke; he is very full chested. The other youth shortly died. He lived with them till 1636 or 1637. His narrations are very strange and pleasant; but so many yeares ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... inspiration that came straight from the bon Dieu? But yes, I am serious. Et toi?" he added sharply using for the first time the familiar pronoun, "are you afraid I will beat you ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... every criminal commits some stupidity, and leaves some trace behind him. If it is really a crime which we have found the trace of here, we will soon discover it." Muller's editorial "we" was a matter of formality. He might with more truth have used the singular pronoun. ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... allusion to the Tiber-totallers. It should be remembered that tea was unknown in Rome, except as the accusative case of a pronoun. ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh |
