Word: grammars
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...this tedious mediocrity which has amazed me year after year. In spelling, punctuation, and grammar, some of the essays are a little worse than the mass, and some a great deal better; but in other respects there is dead-level, unvaried by a fresh thought or an individual expression. Almost all the writers use the same common-place vocabulary-a very small one-in the same confused way. One year, after reading 200 or 300 compositions on "The Story of the Tempest," I found myself in such profound ignorance of both plot and characters that I had to read...
...members of the Columbia crew have at last been selected. Early last November the candidates for the honor of a seat in the 'varsity eight, about twenty in number, were taken in hand and put at work in the gymnasium attached to the Columbia Grammar School. They were kept busy working at the rowing machines, chest and back weights and dumbbells. Five men soon dropped out, and the remaining fifteen men were put in boats under the coaching of R. C. Cornell, '74, of the crews of '73 and '74, and who coached the crew that went to England; Latham...
While on his Easter vacation, your correspondent visited the Columbia gymnasium to ascertain some facts about the crews. Accompanied by a friend who acted as guide, he entered the gymnasium, which is pleasantly located in a cellar in the Grammar School. But-I hear you say-we thought all Columbia was a grammar school. No, you are mistaken; there is a nice little college, without any dormitories, around the corner, a nice little athletic field at Mott Haven, and a nice little boat-house on the Harlem; and to end up comfortably, here we are in a real nice little...
Another day in recitation, the class failed to distinguish clearly enough between the uses of the Greek negative particles. One after another gave up in turn, till the question was put to a man who happened to remember the distinction as given in the Professor's Greek Grammar. Rising in his place, he gave the paragraph word for word. Professor Sophocles, with a look of satisfaction, settled back in his chair and growled out, "There, that sounds like something...
...have called the contrivance known as English grammar absurd, and the study of it a useless study; and I verily and soberly believe both these assertions to be true. I believe that the effect of the study of English grammar, so called, is to cramp the free action of the mind; to bewilder and confuse where it does not enfeeble and formalize; to pervert the perception of the true excellence of English speech; and, in brief, to substitute the sham of a dead form for the reality of a living spirit. Where words have no varying forms indicative of their...