Founding Grammars (9 page)

Recently married to Hannah Dobson, Murray settled down to practice law. About a year later his career was briefly interrupted when his father traveled to England on business and the rest of the family, including Murray and his wife, accompanied him. Murray returned to New York in 1771 and resumed his law practice. He had a wide circle of business connections and did very well until the upheavals of the Revolution shut down the courts.

At about the same time Murray suffered an episode of severe illness. When he recovered, the Murrays decided to move to Islip, a quiet hamlet on the south shore of Long Island. In this idyllic spot Murray hoped to regain his health. Another motivation was to escape New York until, in Murray's words, “the political storm should blow over, and the horizon become again clear and settled.”
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The extent of Murray's loyalty to England is unclear. His evident wish to avoid involvement in the Revolution may have stemmed from Tory sympathies, but it might also have been inspired by a Quaker opposition to war. Murray's mother and other family members were known to support the American cause. His father, however, was a committed Loyalist. Robert Murray openly traded with the British before and during the war, and almost certainly was part of a supply chain providing the British army with flour. After the king's army captured and occupied New York, its officers were welcomed into the elder Murray's Manhattan home.

Whatever the son's views, after four years in Islip spent mostly fishing and sailing, he was ready to return to New York. Murray had begun to feel as though he needed to earn money again. He joined his father in the import-export business and was extremely successful. By the end of the war, he had amassed a large enough fortune to retire.

Murray and his wife then purchased what he describes in his memoirs as “a country seat” on the banks of the Hudson, about three miles outside the city. They planned to settle down to a bucolic life, surrounded by extensive gardens and their own cattle pastures. No thoughts were in Murray's mind of a writing career. Before they could settle into their new home, however, Murray's always-fragile health broke down completely. Besides fever and chills, he experienced muscle weakness so severe he could barely walk. After a time he improved, but he never fully recovered. From then on, Murray's health would dictate the shape of his life.

The Murrays tried different remedies. They traveled to the Pennsylvania countryside, where they spent several weeks getting to know the Moravian community. When temperatures rose into the 90s, they traveled into the mountains for relief. They visited medicinal springs, where Murray sampled the waters. Nothing improved his health. Gradually he noticed that hot summer weather had an especially damaging effect. When Murray and his wife began to think of relocating to a cooler climate, Murray's doctor suggested Yorkshire.

At the end of 1784 the Murrays sailed for England, believing that they would return to New York after a few years. In fact, they would remain in Yorkshire for the rest of their lives—more than forty years. The gentleman farmer's existence that Murray had planned for himself would never materialize. Instead he was a little more than a decade away from writing the books that would make him famous and define grammar study until the middle of the nineteenth century.
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*   *   *

Sometime in 1803 Lindley Murray mailed a copy of his grammar book to Noah Webster, enclosing a friendly letter. It opens, “I take the liberty of requesting that the Author of ‘Dissertations on the English Language' will do me the favour to accept a copy of the new edition of my grammar as a small testimony of my respect for his talents and character.” After further complimenting Webster on his “ingenious and sensible writings,” Murray asks that Webster look over the grammar and convey any suggestions he may have for improvement.
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This letter was the only direct communication that Murray and Webster would have. Webster's answer would not appear for several years and when it did, it would take a form far different from the letter that Murray expected. Instead Webster responded by writing a new grammar book of his own. He was more firmly convinced than ever of the ideas that he had formed while writing his grammar lectures in 1785, and also more disapproving of conventional grammar books. Any “suggestions for improvement” that Webster had for Murray were incorporated into his book as attacks. Webster later claimed that he had sent Murray a copy of his new book, along with what he termed a polite letter, but Murray apparently never received it.

The past decade had been a busy one for Webster, although little of it had been spent in language writing. His energies were mainly channeled into the political writing that appeared in his Federalist newspaper,
The American Minerva.
Webster and his family returned to New Haven in 1798 after five years in New York, but Webster continued to edit and publish the
Minerva
until 1801. Then a rival Federalist journal, the
Evening Post,
began siphoning off Webster's readers. He decided to sell the paper and get out of the journalism business. Afterward he continued writing vigorously on a variety of topics. He published
A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases
in 1799, after an outbreak of yellow fever piqued his interest in the subject. In 1805 he brought out the two-volume
Elements of Useful Knowledge,
a survey of American history and geography.

At the same time he returned to his first love, American English. In 1806 Webster published
A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language.
This dictionary was his first attempt at recording American words. Although much less comprehensive than his monumental 1828 dictionary would be, the
Compendious Dictionary
was a substantial piece of work. It featured five thousand new words not recorded in previous dictionaries, and cemented Webster's reputation as a language scholar.

As usual with Webster's publications, not everyone was happy with the book. Some critics were scandalized by Webster's audacity in attempting to compete with the great British lexicographer Samuel Johnson, whose 1755
Dictionary of the English Language
was considered the gold standard. Others were troubled by the inclusion of “low” words (
bamboozle
) and Americanisms (
presidential, deputize
), as well as a number of simplified spellings (
aker
for
acre, tung
for
tongue, wimen
for
women
). Most commentators, however, considered the book a major accomplishment.

In the first few pages of the dictionary's preface, Webster talks about his latest views on grammar, a preview of the grammar book that he would publish the following year. Writing to his friend Joel Barlow in 1807, he describes his new grammar project: “My grammar had its run but it has been superseded by Murray's. Both are wrong. I have lately published one on Horne Tooke's plan, which President Smith of Princeton pronounces the best analysis of the language ever published.”
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Webster's new version of English grammar gave him a chance to correct what he saw as his own earlier mistakes, while pointing out those of Murray and other grammarians. His goal, as before, was to rescue Americans from linguistic ignorance and make them aware of how their language really worked.

A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language
represents the culmination of Webster's thinking about English over twenty years. When he wrote the book, he was still in thrall to British linguistic philosopher John Horne Tooke's theory that all English words—including prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives, and adverbs—originated as Anglo-Saxon nouns and verbs. Part of his purpose was to reanalyze English grammar according to this idea. Webster's preface asks rhetorically, “Have we not Grammars enough already?” He answers with a firm no, “for if the theory … unfolded in Horne Tooke's ‘Diversions of Purley,' is well founded, we have not hitherto had
any
correct Grammar.”
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As Webster has seen nothing in new grammar books except “fresh editions of the same errors,” he intends to construct a grammar based on true principles of the language.

Webster was not writing for scholars only. He planned to market
A Philosophical and Practical Grammar
as a textbook. He organized it in typical grammar book style, beginning with the alphabet and including the usual sections on parts of speech (“Etymology”), sentence structure (“Syntax”), and pronunciation (“Prosody”). Webster also included many examples of false syntax and the usual type of parsing exercise. Over this basic foundation, however, he built a highly idiosyncratic grammatical edifice.

Webster's radical remodeling begins with the basic building blocks. He explains in the preface that, in order to more accurately describe “the true state” of English, he has had to change the names of most parts of speech. While he is aware that the names have been customary since classical times, “in the sciences prescription cannot legalize error.”
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Webster divides words into two classes—primary and secondary. In the primary category are verbs and nouns—the words on which the rest of the language depends. He keeps the term
verb
because he can't think of another one that is more descriptive, but he relabels nouns as
names.
The secondary category covers the remaining parts of speech. All except prepositions are renamed. These include substitutes (pronouns), attributes (adjectives), modifiers (adverbs), and connectives (conjunctions).

Webster then discusses each part of speech, often exploring its origins and usage in lengthy footnotes. His attacks on other grammarians typically appear in these notes. His usual method is to cite an example sentence or statement from another grammar book and then argue that it's wrong. Although Webster rails against other grammarians generally, he singles out Murray for special abuse. His hostility probably stemmed at least partly from frustration over his declining book sales.
English Grammar, Adapted to Different Classes of Learners
was inexorably pushing
Grammatical Institute, Part II
out of schoolrooms and homes.

The attacks on Murray begin in the preface. Webster mentions in a footnote that English grammar books have not shown much improvement since the days of Charles II. He admits that Lowth has “supplied some valuable criticisms,” but then says dismissively, “Murray, not having mounted to the original sources of information, and professing only to select and arrange the rules and criticisms of preceding writers, has furnished little or nothing new.”
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Webster again compares Murray unfavorably with Lowth in his discussion of
a
and
an.
This extended footnote gives a taste of the book's overall tone. Webster starts by explaining that grammarians have normally labeled these two words indefinite articles, in contrast to the definite
the,
arguing that they don't identify one specific person or thing. Webster disagrees. He believes that because
a
and
an
do limit a noun to a single item or individual they constitute “the most definite word imaginable.”

Webster then argues his point in more detail. He quotes Lowth's definition of
a
—“
A
is used in a vague sense to point out one single thing of the kind, in other respects indeterminate”—and follows it with Murray's definition—“
A
is styled the indefinite article; it is used in a vague sense to point out one single thing of the kind, in other respects indeterminate.” He comments tartly, “So great scholars write, and so their disciples copy!”

He notes that Lowth's book is titled
A Short Introduction to English Grammar
and wonders whether Lowth would agree that the
A
in this instance refers to something indeterminate. He believes that Lowth would consider his book a very specific thing. To cap his argument he continues sarcastically, “Suppose
a
man to have received
a
severe wound,
a
fracture of the leg, or of the skull; however indeterminate the man may be, his grammars will hardly convince him that
a
broken head or leg is a very indeterminate thing.”
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Like many of the book's other extended explorations of the true nature of a word, this one does not have any practical application. Webster has committed himself to a perverse interpretation of
a
and
an,
but he isn't suggesting that they should be used differently. He just thinks that they should be labeled differently.

Anti-Murray footnotes are scattered throughout the book. Webster quotes Murray's rule that the phrase
as follows
should always be singular—
The rules are as follows,
not
The rules are as follow.
Then he huffs, “On this passage, which is an error from beginning to end, I will just remark that had it been written in the days of Johnson and Lowth, the errors it contains must have been pardoned.… But to frame such an explanation … after the publication of the ‘Diversions of Purley' admits of no apology.” Webster also disagrees with Murray about the proper form for joint possessives. Webster believes that when several people possess a thing, each possessor gets an
's—It was my father's, mother's, and uncle's opinion.
He then notes, “The contrary rule in Murray is egregiously wrong, as exemplified in this phrase: ‘This was my father, mother, and uncle's advice.' This is not English.” Never mind that in both cases the weight of consensus was—and still is—on Murray's side.
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