Were
this the case, and were the language now to be taught and understood
in compliance with the original import of words, it would have to
undergo a thorough change; to be analyzed, divided, and sub-divided,
almost _ad infinitum_. Indeed, there is the same propriety in
asserting that the Gothic, Danish, and Anglo-Saxon elements in our
language, ought to be pronounced separately, to enable us to
understand our vernacular tongue, that there is in contending, that
their primitive meaning has an ascendency over the influence of the
principle of association in changing, and the power of custom in
determining, the import of words. Many of our words are derived from
the Greek, Roman, French, Spanish, Italian, and German languages;
and the only use we can make of their originals, is to render them
subservient to the force of custom in cases in which general usage
has not varied from the primitive signification. Moreover, let the
advocates of a mere philosophical investigation of the language,
extend their system as far as a radical analysis will warrant them,
and, with Horne Tooke, not only consider adverbs, prepositions,
conjunctions, and interjections, as abbreviations of nouns and
verbs, but, on their own responsibility, apply them, in teaching the
language, _in compliance with their radical import_, and what would
such a course avail them against the power of custom, and the
influence of association and refinement? Let them show me one
grammarian, produced by such a course of instruction, and they will
exhibit a "philosophical" miracle.
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