The Grammar of English Grammars, page 751 by Gould Brown

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752

f." "A neuter verb becomes active, when followed by a noun of the same signification with its own."--_Sanborn's Gram._, p. 127. Here same is wrong, or else the last three words are useless. It would therefore be improper to say--"of the same signification as its own." The expression ought to be--"of a signification similar to its own." "Ode is, in Greek, the same with song or hymn."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 396. Song being no Greek word, I cannot think the foregoing expression accurate, though one might say, "Ode is identical with song or hymn." Would it not be better to say, "Ode is the same as song or hymn?" That is, "Ode is, literally, the same thing that song or hymn _is_?" "Treatises of philosophy, ought not to be composed in the same style with orations."--_Blair's Rhet._, p. 175. Here neither with nor as can be proper; because orations are not a style. Expunge _same_; and say--"in the style of orations."

OBS. 25.--Few writers are sufficiently careful in their choice and management of relatives. In the following instance, Murray and others violate a special rule of their own grammars, by using whom for that "after an adjective of the superlative degree:" "Modifying them according to the genius of that tongue, and the established practice of the best speakers and writers by whom it is used."--_Octavo Gram._, p. 1; _Fisk's_, p. 11; _et al._ According to Priestley and himself, the great Compiler is here in an error. The rule is perhaps too stringent; but whoever teaches it, should keep it. If he did not like to say, "the best speakers and writers that it is used _by_;" he ought to have said, "the best speakers and writers that use it." Or, rather, he ought to have said nothing after the word "writers;" because the whole relative clause is here weak and useless. Yet how man

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