Founding Grammars

by Rosemarie Ostler

  Lindley Murray was a Pennsylvanian by birth, but when he began writing English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners in 1794, he and his wife, Hannah, were living on the outskirts of York. They had moved there nearly a decade earlier, hoping a cool climate would benefit Murray’s health. The forty-nine-year-old Murray had recently become an invalid, unable to walk more than a few yards without exhaustion. At first the Murrays hoped to return to New York after two or three years. Unfortunately, instead of improving, Murray’s health grew worse. He developed increasingly debilitating muscle weakness, which would have made travel a serious challenge, so they stayed in York. (No one knows exactly what was wrong with Murray. One suggestion is that he had post-polio syndrome, brought on by a childhood polio attack. Other possibilities are that he suffered from some form of multiple sclerosis or myasthenia gravis, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes muscle weakness.)1

  Murray and his wife lived quietly in the small village of Holdgate (now called Holgate). Because he was unable to move around, Murray’s days were circumscribed. He spent his time mainly in his sitting room, a large, comfortable space where a fire burned year-round. The room featured two bow windows, one overlooking the garden, the other the road to York. Those views were as close as Murray got to the outdoors most of the time. Once a day, if he could, he walked slowly out to a closed carriage, using a plank to level out the space between the front steps and the vehicle. The coachman then drove him around for an hour or so to enjoy the fresh air.

  Visitors often remarked that Murray, a tall, slender man with pleasant features, looked remarkably well considering his condition. He kept his health stable by following a regular schedule of light meals and plenty of sleep. He also followed a work schedule as well as he could. His wife wheeled him into his sitting room in the morning using a wheeled armchair. He then moved onto the sofa. Here, using a portable writing desk, he spent most of the day reading, writing, and conducting business.

  In spite of Murray’s infirmity, he was active in his community. One reason why he and Hannah had chosen to settle near York was the area’s vibrant Quaker community, the second largest in England. Murray notes in his memoirs that the two had hoped to settle among “religious and exemplary persons.”2 Shortly after their arrival they applied to join the York Monthly Meeting (the local congregation) and were not only accepted as members, but were quickly appointed as Elders. That meant they had responsibility for the spiritual education of fellow members, both adults and children. Murray’s limited trips away from home often took him to the Quaker meetinghouse.

  Murray’s first book grew out of both his circumstances and his religious beliefs. In 1787 he compiled a collection of “testimonies”—thoughts on illness, affliction, and death—titled The Power of Religion on the Mind. As he explains in his memoirs, he was inspired to write the book after reflecting on the “lively pleasure and satisfaction” that he received from “perusing the sentiments of eminent and virtuous persons on the subject of religion and futurity when they approached the close of life.” He later wrote to a friend that he wanted to promote “piety and virtue … without the design of advancing … any one religious profession.”3

  The book features an eclectic group of people from far-flung countries and various times—Confucius to John Donne, Caesar Borgia to Isaac Newton. The Power of Religion was instantly popular, foreshadowing the tremendous success of his grammar writings. His way of handling its publication and distribution, as well as the resulting profits, was also typical of his later books.

  Murray was not initially interested in selling the book at all. Instead, he had 500 copies printed and distributed anonymously to prominent citizens of York. The response was so enthusiastic that he then decided to have a London publisher print a larger edition. Several more editions quickly followed. With the sixth edition, Murray revised and enlarged the book and finally put his name on the title page. He then assigned the copyright to a bookseller, feeling that if it “circulated more diffusively” his purpose in writing it—to share ideas that he had found inspiring—would be “still more effectually answered.” Within the next few decades, the book went through eighteen editions.4 Murray did not accept any of the profits.

  Although Murray was tied to his sitting room sofa, he was not isolated. An even-tempered, kindly man, he welcomed visits whenever he felt well enough to talk. Those who spent time with him often commented on his gentle manner. Before his illness he enjoyed a lively social life. As an invalid he still welcomed neighbors to his sitting room to share their news and talk over events in the larger world. When his condition worsened and he was no longer able to go out, many church-related activities such as mentoring necessarily took place in his sitting room as well.

  Murray’s grammar book grew out of one such activity. In 1794, while Murray was recovering from a bout of acute illness, he received a letter from three young women who taught at the Trinity Lane School, a recently founded Quaker girls’ school. Murray sometimes acted as an advisor to the school’s directors. When the teachers were first hired, school administrators deemed them insufficiently qualified to teach grammar, so Murray tutored them at his house. Now the young women were asking for something more substantial. They wanted a complete English grammar, “with examples and rules annexed, proper for this and similar Institutions.” In their joint letter, they write that they are “well assured” of his “incomparable abilities” and “humbly solicit” his acceptance of this important task.5

  Murray hesitated over the request, feeling that he wasn’t competent to write an original work on grammar. Eventually, he agreed, after receiving permission from the Quaker authorities in London, and with the understanding that the book was destined only for Trinity Lane and its sister school in Clonmel, Ireland.

  Murray didn’t have any of the usual motivations for writing a grammar book. Unlike most authors, he had never been a schoolteacher and didn’t need a volume for the classroom. He didn’t have strong views on usage, as Noah Webster did. At the start, he wasn’t even writing with a general audience in mind. He was simply doing his best to help out his young friends. Yet his amateur effort was destined for a success that Webster and other grammar book authors could only envy.

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  Because Murray was writing for a limited readership of Quaker schoolgirls, he didn’t worry about providing original content. He concentrated on organizing and explaining his material in an accessible way. In the introduction to English Grammar, he begins cautiously by observing, “When the number and variety of English grammars already published, and the ability with which some of them are written, are considered, little can be expected from a new compilation.” He hopes to make his contribution by “a careful selection of the most useful matter, and some degree of improvement in the mode of adapting it to the understanding and the gradual progress of learners.”6

  This humble disclaimer didn’t impress Murray’s later critics—mainly rival grammarians. They would claim that his heavy reliance on previous writers, especially Lowth, crossed the line from compilation into plagiarism. He was far from alone, however, in basing his grammar rules on those already published. Standards for borrowing from previous authors were looser in Murray’s day and borrowing from Lowth was especially common. Murray always insisted that his aim of clarifying traditional material was legitimate.

  Although much of Murray’s material came from other books, he did introduce innovations. These set his book apart and helped turn it into a runaway bestseller. Murray was the first to print the most important rules and definitions—“the most proper to be committed to memory”—in large type as a way of making lessons easier to absorb. Detailed explanations and investigation of specific points appeared in smaller type. Beginning students learning the basics simply focused on the large-type passages, which were arranged so they made sense even when readers skipped over the intervening small type.

  The greater clarity of Murray’s book is immediately obvious when it’s compar
ed with competing grammar books. English Grammar is much less discursive than works by Lowth, Webster, and other writers. Rather than introducing a part of speech or other item of grammar and then exploring the fine points, Murray lists and defines all the parts of speech together, then briefly discusses each one in turn before moving on to issues of sentence grammar. In the days when learning grammar meant memorizing it, this straightforward arrangement must have made the beginner’s task much less onerous. Many later grammar book authors, including some who criticized Murray’s excessive borrowings, adopted this sensible way of organizing material.

  Murray’s reliance on Lowth is most evident in his definitions and grammatical rules. He describes nouns in nearly the same elaborate language as Lowth. Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar defines a noun as “the name of a thing; of whatever we conceive in any way to subsist, or of which we have any notion.” Murray defines it as “the name of any thing conceived to subsist, or of which we have any notion.” His definition of a verb is, word for word, the same as Lowth’s—“A verb is a word which signifies to be, to do, or to suffer [be the subject of].”7 Murray also follows Lowth in avoiding Latinate noun declension. For nouns, he lists only nominative—the default—and possessive—the only case with a special ending. He classifies pronouns as nominative, possessive, or objective.

  Unlike Lowth, he explains in small print the difference between the structures of English and Latin and why it’s best to avoid adopting Latin noun categories. He writes, “The English language, to express different relations and connections of one thing to another, uses for the most part prepositions. The Greek and Latin … vary the termination … of the substantive [noun] to answer the same purpose”—that is, Greek and Latin use varying word endings to show whether nouns are subjects, objects, or something else. Murray provides an example of Latin noun declension so students can see the difference.

  Murray then goes on to suggest that if the term case means “the variation of a noun or pronoun by termination” it should not also be used for “the relations signified by the … addition of prepositions.”8 In Murray’s view, labeling preposition-noun combinations such as to a book and of a book with case names like dative and genitive doesn’t make sense. It’s better to treat the noun separately from the preposition that precedes it. Elucidations like these are no doubt another reason why learners vastly preferred Murray’s grammar.

  After outlining the parts of speech, Murray moves on to syntax, “the agreement and right disposition of words in a sentence.” Here he recapitulates all the conventional grammatical restrictions. Like Lowth and others, he calls for nominative case after to be—It is I—and bans the use of who and whose with nonhumans. The familiar double negative rule—two negatives are equivalent to an affirmative—is stated in exactly the same words as those of Lowth and other grammar books. Murray also adopts Lowth’s rule on prepositions left stranded at the end of a sentence in virtually the same words, except that he corrects Lowth’s grammar. Instead of Lowth’s “This is an idiom which our language is strongly inclined to” he writes, “This is an idiom to which our language is strongly inclined.”9

  Some of the issues Murray addresses have a familiar ring. He writes about the use of they with a singular antecedent, giving as one example, Can anyone, on their entrance into the world, be fully secure that they shall not be deceived? Since anyone is singular, Murray says, the correct pronouns are his and he. Today’s grammar purists largely agree with Murray, but might be surprised that the usage was common enough to be mentioned in an eighteenth-century grammar book. Typically, critics today assume that speakers use they with singular nouns in order to avoid using he alone or the awkward he or she. In fact, this usage came naturally to English speakers long before sexist pronouns were a concern.

  Murray also discusses another nonstandard usage that still causes widespread annoyance—using the wrong pronoun case in conjoined phrases. His examples include My sister and her were on good terms (should be my sister and she); He entreated us, my comrade and I, to live harmoniously (should be my comrade and me); His wealth and him bid adieu to each other (should be his wealth and he). Present-day sticklers for correctness usually assume that nonstandard pronouns, especially nominative case after verbs and prepositions, as in between you and I—sometimes called “hypercorrection”—are a contemporary issue. Evidently, however, incorrect nominatives were just as troublesome two centuries ago.

  Even more than other grammar book authors, Murray took advantage of his practice exercises and example sentences to mix moral training with grammar lessons. In his memoirs, he explains that he was especially concerned with “the propriety and purity of all the examples and illustrations.”10 This attitude makes sense, as he was writing specifically with the adolescent girls of Trinity Lane School in mind. Murray’s example sentences are often taken from the Bible, but he also includes short, morally improving aphorisms. For instance, his parsing exercises feature such sentences as “Peace and joy are virtue’s crown” and “The man is happy who lives wisely.”

  At the end of English Grammar, Murray offers another innovation in the form of an appendix titled “Perspicuity,” where he lists a number of rules for improving clarity in writing. Today this section would be called a style guide. Much of Murray’s advice sounds familiar. That’s because it still appears in one form or another in many twenty-first-century writing manuals.

  Murray begins by explaining that perspicuity requires “purity, propriety, and precision.” Under the heading “purity,” he counsels students to avoid using words that are obsolete—erewhile; newly coined—incumberment; or not English—politesse. Under “propriety,” he lists rules such as “Avoid low expressions,” “Avoid injudicious use of technical terms,” and “Keep clear of double meaning or ambiguity.” Two examples of low expressions are topsy-turvy and hurly-burly.

  Murray spends the most time on “precision,” which he describes as expressing an idea fully, but without unnecessary words. Offenses against precision include overlong sentences and incorrect synonyms. Murray offers plainspoken writing advice, such as, “In order to write or speak clearly and intelligibly, two things are especially requisite; one, that we have clear and distinct ideas of our subject; and the other that our words be approved signs of these ideas.”11

  The final paragraphs in the precision section list rules for composing effective sentences—for example, weaker assertions should come before stronger ones, and sentences should be pruned of redundant words. With his fifth rule, Murray brings the issue of sentence-final prepositions once more into play.

  Here Murray asserts that writers should avoid concluding sentences with “an adverb, a preposition, or any inconsiderable word.” As an illustration, he gives a typical example of preposition stranding: “Avarice is a crime which men are often guilty of.” He suggests that “Avarice is a crime of which men are often guilty” is stronger. Then he goes a step further. In Murray’s opinion, prepositions should never end a sentence, even when they are part of verb-preposition combinations like clear up.12 A strong verb is a better choice.

  Although Murray takes the no-prepositions rule to a new level, he sets it in the larger context of pleasing style—prepositions at the end of sentences are not so much ungrammatical as awkward. They are not the only part of speech that he feels should be avoided. He also rules out adverbs and pronouns at the end of a sentence. His reasoning is that the reader can’t help pausing for a few seconds on the last word of a sentence, so it’s better to end with a word—like a noun or verb—that conveys an idea. Early grammarians such as Lowth and Murray often framed their rules in terms of pleasing style. Later grammar books would tend to repeat their rules without the mitigating explanations, turning them from style suggestions into inviolable laws of grammar.

  Murray wraps up his grammar book by drawing a direct parallel between good grammar and more substantial virtues. “Embarrassed, obscure, and feeble sentences,” he admonishes readers, “are generally
, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure, and feeble thought.” In contrast, he says, “those who are learning to compose and arrange their sentences with accuracy and order are learning at the same time to think with accuracy and order; a consideration which alone will recompense the student for any care and attention that may be suitably employed on these occasions.”13

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  English Grammar, Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners quickly gained an audience far broader than Quaker schoolgirls. Although Murray had originally stipulated that the book was only for use in two schools, he apparently overcame his qualms about having it widely distributed. By 1797 English Grammar was being printed and sold in London as well as Yorkshire. Once it hit the larger market, its success was immediate and phenomenal.

  That same year Murray published a book of exercises designed to give students extra practice. It offered exercises in spelling, punctuation, and parsing, as well as syntax. He also provided an answer key, as he says in his memoirs, “for the convenience of teachers and for the use of young persons who had left school and who might be desirous, at their leisure, to improve themselves in grammatical studies.” He explains that he hopes to encourage the student by giving him “the pleasure of feeling his own powers and progress” in language learning. He also wants to “imbue his mind with sentiments of the highest importance” by “weaving principles of piety and virtue with the study of language.”14

  An abridged version of the grammar for younger students and anyone just beginning grammar study also appeared in 1797. Written mostly in short declarative sentences, with a tight organization and few footnotes, it’s a comparatively easy read. Eventually Murray added a reader, then an introduction and a sequel to the reader, and finally a spelling book. The schools and the public snapped up each volume as soon as it appeared.

  In a 1799 letter to a friend, Murray writes, “In four years there have been printed of the Abridgment, the Grammar, the Exercises, and Key, forty-six thousand copies; [and] eight thousand of ‘The English Reader.’” He tells his friend that “an eminent” London bookseller offered him ₤1,050 for the copyrights of the grammar, exercises, and reader, which he has accepted. He sold the abridgment earlier for ₤100. Concerned that his correspondent will think he’s benefiting financially from these sales, he hastens to reassure him: “I have appropriated the whole … for the benefit of others, without applying any of it to my private use.”15