M. L. Nesbitt

“ I never said that the particular name of a place or thing was not a proper noun too. Every particular and special name, whether of a person, an animal, a place, or a thing, is a proper noun. Every place has its own proper name, or should have. Every country and mountain and river and town in Europe is named with a proper noun. Why, you would not call England a common noun, I should hope? There are plenty of countries in the world, but there is only one country that is called by the proper name of dear old England. ”

“ Pray, have you nothing to say about the good that my kind, loving words do?”
“Oh, certainly, my dear sir,” said Serjeant Parsing, suddenly changing his tone. “When you like any one you are a very good-natured fellow, and can say all sorts of sweet things. I heard you in Schoolroom-shire telling Mary that her mamma is her own dearest, kindest, sweetest mother—that baby is a bright, bonny little darling—that Fido is a good, faithful old doggie—and that home is the happiest place in the whole wide world. ”

“ Noun,” said Serjeant Parsing, “you do claim a big share of words. You will be making out that the names of persons belong to you next.”
11 “So they do,” replied Mr. Noun; “no matter who the persons are, their names belong to me. I have the name of every person in the world from good Queen Victoria on her throne to the raggedest beggar-boy in the street. There is not a child in Schoolroom-shire whose name is not a noun. And I have not the names of people only, but of all pet dogs, cats, birds, horses, or rabbits: Fido, Tabby, Bright-eye, Tiny, Shag, and any other pet names you can think of. ”

“ Verb, “I know very well that when people want to name a thing they must use a noun. But do you suppose that when they have simply named a thing they have made a sentence? Not a bit of it. To make a sentence you must tell something about the thing that you have named; you must say whether it is or has or does anything, as: ‘Ice is cold,’ ‘Puss has a tail,’ ‘Blackbirds sing.’ Is, has, sing, are verbs, and so are all words that speak of being, having, or doing, and without some such word you cannot make a sentence.” ”

“ Verb does not agree with you, though,” remarked Pronoun, quietly.
“No,” said Preposition, “I do not alter for him, nor he for me. But he does not agree with Adverb either. Poor Adverb agrees with nobody, and nobody agrees with him; and he, poor fellow! cannot govern anybody, either. Now I govern every noun or pronoun that I come before, for I put them in the Objective Case.”
“I object,” cried the Judge. “I will not have that word brought into court. I said so before, and I say so again. Nominative Case is bad enough, but Objective Case is enough to turn a brown wig grey in a single night. ”

“ Once is quite enough to have heard such an unruly, odd little creature as you are; and you have thrown yourself in more than once while the people were speaking. We all know that you neither govern nor are governed by any one else, and that you agree with nobody. Therefore, stand aside and be quiet.”
“Ah, well!” chuckled Interjection, as he obeyed, “if I do not govern any one, at least I can take my neighbours’ words, as other people can, and make them my own. Marry! forsooth! indeed! that I can!”
“Marry is mine,” said Dr. Verb, bustling up. ”

“ Serjeant Parsing began, when he was interrupted by a solemn voice near him, as Dr. Syntax suddenly rose and said, “Active verbs govern the Objective Case; active verbs govern the Objective Case;” and then sat down again.
“I know what he means by that,” said Dr. Verb. “Active verbs are those whose action passes on to some one or something else, as in the sentence, ‘Harry kicked the cat,’ the action of kicking passed on to the poor cat; and in ‘I ate my dinner,’ the action of eating passed on and consumed the dinner; so kick and eat are both active verbs, and govern an Objective Case.” ”

“ Syntax rose and said: “The first person is always the person speaking, and the second is the person spoken to. Let every one in the court say, ‘I am the first,’ and we shall all be right, and all satisfied.” ”

“ Noun, standing up. “You have seen how my words can be Nominative Case or Objective Case; but there is a case in which they are neither of these two. For instance, in the sentence, ‘The monkey pulled the cat’s tail,’—pulled is the verb; monkey is the nominative, for the monkey did the pulling; tail is the objective, for ‘what did the monkey pull?’ The tail—but then what case is cat’s? It is not nominative nor objective.” ”

“ I will remember,” said Serjeant Parsing, laughing. “Now please to stand back, and allow Mr. Pronoun to answer.—Mr. Pronoun, pray why do you use these particular six words, I, thou, he, we, you, and they, to make up Dr. Verb’s tenses?”
65 “I use I and we,” answered Pronoun, “to stand for the first person; thou and you to stand for the second person; and he and they to stand for the third person.”
“What do you mean by the first person?” asked Serjeant Parsing.
“My lord,” answered Mr. Pronoun, turning to Judge Grammar, “may I ask you who is the first person in Grammar-land?” ”

“ Noun, remember, that you are to allow Adjective to take your words whenever he requires them, for you ought to know that words in Grammar-land are not like pennies in Matter-of-fact-land. There, if some one steals a penny from you, he has it and you have not; but here, in Grammar-land, when any one takes your words to make new ones, it makes him richer, but you are none the poorer for it. ”

“ Is is part of the verb to be, has is part of the verb to have.”
58 “Is, part of the verb to be?” said Serjeant Parsing. “What do you mean? why, the two words have not a single letter alike.”
“True; but still they mean the same sort of thing. When a countryman says ‘he be a brave lad,’ he means the same thing as ‘he is a brave lad;’ or when he says, ‘I be too tired,’ he means, ‘I am too tired.’ Is and am ought to be used according to the laws of Grammar-land instead of be, but as they both express something about being they are said to be parts of the verb to be. ”

“ They are funny fellows, these nine Parts-of-Speech. You will find out by-and-by which you like best amongst them all. There is rich Mr. Noun, and his useful friend Pronoun; little ragged Article, and talkative Adjective; busy Dr. Verb, and Adverb; perky Preposition, convenient Conjunction, and that tiresome Interjection, the oddest of them all.
Now, as some of these Parts-of-Speech are richer, that is, have more words than others, and as they all like to have as many as they can get, it follows, I am sorry to say, that they are rather given to quarrelling ”

“ But long ago people took it into their heads to fancy that it would be very polite to talk to one person as if he were at least as good as two. It is a very vulgar thing to be only one person, but to be two people rolled into one would be very grand indeed. So when a man was talking to a grand neighbour he called him you instead of thou, and the grand neighbour was so much pleased that it came to be the fashion to say you to every one, and my poor little thou and thee were quite set aside. ”

“ Noun by catching sight of little Article running before him, for whenever you see an a or a the, you may be sure that Mr. Noun will have a word of his own in somewhere near. The chief use of little Article is to point out that a noun is coming, for you may be sure that if you can put an a or a the before a word, that word is a noun, as a bird, the sky. ”

“ Noun, who would have Adjective put in prison for stealing, has been doing the very same thing himself. Happiness, prettiness, silliness, cleverness, and almost all the words that end in ness, are nouns made from adjectives. ”

“ You complain of Adverb for doing the very thing that you do yourself. We all know that you keep your pockets full of tails ready to stick on to your neighbours’ words—ful, ous, able, like, ly, and plenty more, and you use them as often as you can with other people’s words. But when Adverb uses his one little ly with your words, then you are up in arms directly. ”

“ Then you are to be sure that the verb agrees with it. You must say ‘ducks swim,’ not ‘ducks swims;’ and as ducks is the third person and plural number, swim will be third person and plural number too.”
“Please, my lord,” said Pronoun, “when I am Nominative you need very seldom take the trouble to ask any question to find out the Nominative, for most of my words show at once what they are in. I, thou, he, she, we, and they will never allow themselves to be used except as Nominatives. They were born Nominatives, they say, and will not degrade themselves by being anything else. ”

“ Parsing is at his wit’s end to know what to do with it, ah! ah! Off! off!” he cried, changing his tone, and suddenly jerking himself out of the policeman’s hold. “Away! away!” he shouted, springing to the door; and before they could catch him he was indeed away, and they heard his “ha! ha! ha!” die away in the distance.
Serjeant Parsing then turned to the Schoolroom-shire folks, and asked them to mark off on their slates places for Mr. Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, and little Article, and a corner somewhere for tiresome Interjection ”

“ Mr. Noun, though he is so rich, does not like to have his words used over and over again—he says it wears them out; so to save trouble I put in my little words, which do just as well.”
“And you are not afraid of your words being worn out?” asked the Judge.
“O dear no! my lord,” answered Pronoun. “I think my words are like the iron rails on the railway—the more they are used the brighter they look; it is only the idle ones that get rusty and spoilt. And it is not many of my words that get rusty, I can tell you, my lord. Serjeant Parsing knows how he was one day trying to22 make sense of Dr. ”

“ Parsing, and I am sure you will take care to see that the verb always agrees with me in number and person.”
“Whenever it is proper that it should,” replied Serjeant Parsing, gravely.
“But it ought always to agree with my words when we are conjugating a verb together,” said Pronoun, eagerly; “that is the very reason why it is useful to conjugate verbs. In every tense you have the first person, second person, and third person in the singular number; and the first person, second person, and third person in the plural number ”

“ Verb. He is always putting very, quite, more, most, and words of that sort, before my adjectives, and83 exaggerating them: as, very beautiful, quite charming, more obstinate, most provoking, and I do not complain of him for that. But one thing I do complain of, my lord, and that is, that Adverb will take my words, right good adjectives, stick a ly on to them, and call them his adverbs. For instance, he takes bright, puts ly to it, and makes it brightly; he takes bad, and makes it badly; nice, and makes it nicely; beautiful, and makes it beautifully. ”

“ It is certainly better so. Mr. Noun’s words are not used so often, and all parties are23 pleased. Then he, his, and them, are pronouns, as they stand instead of nouns. Now tell us what other words you have, Mr. Pronoun.”
“First of all, my lord, I have words which are used instead of the names of people when they are talking of themselves, such as I or me, we or us. When a person is speaking of himself he does not name his own name, but says instead, I or me. ”

“ I ride to fight with the wicked and strong who are oppressing the weak and the poor.” Up sprang, in a moment, the fair young boy, flung aside his girlish work, seized his father’s battered sword, and leaped into the saddle behind the noble knight. ”

“ Adjective would then give up his beautiful, useful, graceful, and other adjectives that are made from nouns.”
“No, no,” said the Judge; “I will have no giving up. When a word is once made it is made for good, and instead of blaming those who take their neighbour’s words to make new ones for themselves, I consider that they are very much to be praised. Critics, untie Mr. Adjective’s hands. Mr. Adjective, I am glad to hear you are so clever in making new words, and I give you full permission to make as many more as you can, by borrowing either from43 Mr. Noun or from any other Part-of-Speech. ”

“ But, although, as, also, nor.”
“One more question,” said the Judge; “do you govern or agree with any of your neighbours?”
“Not I, my lord, I leave that for my betters. I am quite satisfied to join them together, and then leave them alone,” answered Conjunction.
“Then that will do for to-day. Brother Parsing, be good enough to send the following story to Schoolroom-shire, and tell them to give Conjunction a place on their slates among the other Parts-of-Speech, and mark down all his words for him. When that is done, I shall have some good news to tell you.” ”

“ Con-ju-ga-tion—this conjugation of the verb ‘to be.’ We require you to explain it.”
“With pleasure, my lord. You see, it is divided into three verses.”
“Verses!” exclaimed Serjeant Parsing. “You know it is not to be called a song, Dr. Verb.”
“Quite so, quite so,” said Dr. Verb, bowing again. “Well, Tenses, then. It is divided into three tenses, the Present Tense, the Past Tense, and the Future Tense, which mean the present time, the past time, and the future time; and your lordship knows that all time must be either present time, or past time, or future time. ”

“ They are rather angry with you for letting people use him in any way they like, but he is a good-natured little fellow, and does not mind any more about the case than he does about being called singular when he is really plural. But I, thou, he, she, we, and78 they, are exceedingly particular, and always are and will be Nominatives, so you need not ask any question when you see one of them in a sentence. ”