Part 7
INDIVIDUAL. This word is often most improperly used for _person_; as, "The _individual_ I saw was not over forty"; "There were several _individuals_ on board that I had never seen before." _Individual_ means, etymologically, that which can not be divided, and is used, in speaking of things as well as of persons, to express unity. It is opposed to the whole, or that which is divisible into parts.
INDORSE. Careful writers generally discountenance the use of _indorse_ in the sense of _sanction_, _approve_, _applaud_. In this signification it is on the list of prohibited words in some of our newspaper offices. "The following rules are _indorsed_ by nearly all writers upon this subject."--Dr. Townsend. It is plain that the right word to use here is _approved_. "The public will heartily _indorse_ the sentiments uttered by the court."--New York "Evening Telegram." "The public will heartily _approve_ the sentiments _expressed_ by the court," is what the sentence should be.
INFINITIVE MOOD. When we can choose, it is generally better to use the verb in the infinitive than in the participial form. "Ability being in general the power _of doing_," etc. Say, _to do_. "I desire to reply ... to the proposal _of substituting_ a tax upon land values ... and _making_ this tax, as near [nearly] as may be, equal to rent," etc. Say, _to substitute_ and _to make_. "This quality is of prime importance when the chief object is _the imparting of_ knowledge." Say, _to impart_.
INITIATE. This is a pretentious word, which, with its derivatives, many persons--especially those who like to be grandiloquent--use, when homely English would serve their turn much better.
INNUMERABLE NUMBER. A repetitional expression to be avoided. We may say _innumerable_ times, or _numberless_ times, but we should not say an _innumerable number_ of times.
INTERROGATION. The rhetorical figure that asks a question in order to emphasize the reverse of what is asked is called _interrogation_; as, "Do we mean to submit to this measure? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves, our country and its rights, shall be trampled on?"
"Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?"
INTRODUCE. See PRESENT.
IRONY. That mode of speech in which what is meant is contrary to the literal meaning of the words--in which praise is bestowed when censure is intended--is called _irony_. Irony is a kind of delicate sarcasm or satire--raillery, mockery.
"In writings of humor, figures are sometimes used of so delicate a nature that it shall often happen that some people will see things in a direct contrary sense to what the author and the majority of the readers understand them: to such the most innocent _irony_ may appear irreligion."--Cambridge.
IRRITATE. See AGGRAVATE.
IS BEING BUILT. A tolerable idea of the state of the discussion regarding the propriety of using the locution _is being built_, and all like expressions, will, it is hoped, be obtained from the following extracts. The Rev. Peter Bullions, in his "Grammar of the English Language," says:
"There is properly _no passive_ form, in English, _corresponding to the progressive_ form in the _active_ voice, except where it is made by the participle _ing_, in a passive sense; thus, 'The house is building'; 'The garments are making'; 'Wheat is selling,' etc. An attempt has been made by some grammarians, of late, to banish such expressions from the language, though they have been used in all time past by the best writers, and to justify and defend a clumsy solecism, which has been recently introduced chiefly through the newspaper press, but which has gained such currency, and is becoming so familiar to the ear, that it seems likely to prevail, with all its uncouthness and deformity. I refer to such expressions as 'The house is being built'; 'The letter is being written'; 'The mine is being worked'; 'The news is being telegraphed,' etc., etc.
"This mode of expression _had no existence_ in the language till _within the last fifty years_.[7] This, indeed, would not make the expression wrong, were it otherwise unexceptionable; but its recent origin shows that it is not, as is pretended, a _necessary_ form.
"This form of expression, when analyzed, is found not to express what it is intended to express, and would be used only by such as are either ignorant of its import or are careless and loose in their use of language. To make this manifest, let it be considered, first, that there is _no progressive form_ of the verb _to be_, and no need of it; hence, there is no such expression in English as _is being_. Of course the expression '_is being_ built,' for example, is not a compound of _is being_ and _built_, but of _is_ and _being built_; that is, of the verb _to be_ and the _present participle passive_. Now, let it be observed that the only verbs in which the present participle passive expresses a continued action are those mentioned above as the first class, in which the regular passive form expresses a _continuance_ of the action; as, _is loved_, _is desired_, etc., and in which, of course, the form in question (_is being built_) is not required. Nobody would think of saying, 'He is being loved'; 'This result is being desired.'
"The use of this form is justified only by _condemning an established usage_ of the language; namely, the passive sense in some verbs of the participle in _ing_. In reference to this it is flippantly asked, 'What does the house build?' 'What does the letter write?' etc.--taking for granted, without attempting to prove, that the participle in _ing_ can not have a passive sense in any verb. The following are a few examples from writers of the best reputation, which this novelty would condemn: 'While the ceremony was performing.'--Tom. Brown. 'The court was then holding.'--Sir G. McKenzie. 'And still be doing, never done.'--Butler. 'The books are selling.'--Allen's 'Grammar.' 'To know nothing of what is transacting in the regions above us.'--Dr. Blair. 'The spot where this new and strange tragedy was acting.'--E. Everett. 'The fortress was building.'--Irving. 'An attempt is making in the English parliament.'--D. Webster. 'The church now erecting in the city of New York.'--'N. A. Review.' 'These things were transacting in England.'--Bancroft.
"This new doctrine is in _opposition_ to the almost _unanimous judgment_ of the _most distinguished grammarians_ and critics, who have considered the subject, and expressed their views concerning it. The following are a specimen: 'Expressions of this kind are condemned by some critics; but the usage is unquestionably of far better authority, and (according to my apprehension) in far better taste, than the more complex phraseology which some late writers adopt in its stead; as, "The books are now being sold."'--Goold Brown. 'As to the notion of introducing a new and more complex passive form of conjugation, as, "The bridge _is being built_," "The bridge _was being built_," and so forth, it is one of the most absurd and monstrous innovations ever thought of. "The work _is now being published_," is certainly no better English than, "The work _was being published_, _has been being published_, _had been being published_, _shall or will be being published_, _shall or will have been being published_," and so on through all the moods and tenses. What a language shall we have when our verbs are thus conjugated!'--Brown's 'Gr. of Eng. Gr.,' p. 361. De War observes: 'The participle in _ing_ is also passive in many instances; as, "The house is building," "I heard of a plan forming,"' etc.--Quoted in 'Frazee's Grammar,' p. 49. 'It would be an absurdity, indeed, to give up the only way we have of denoting the incomplete state of action by a passive form (viz., by the participle in _ing_ in the passive sense).'--Arnold's 'English Grammar,' p. 46. 'The present participle is often used passively; as, "The ship is building." The form of expression, _is being built_, _is being committed_, etc., is almost universally condemned by grammarians, but it is sometimes met with in respectable writers; it occurs most frequently in newspaper paragraphs and in hasty compositions. See Worcester's "Universal and Critical Dictionary."'--Weld's 'Grammar,' pp. 118 and 180. 'When we say, "The house is building," the advocates of the new theory ask, "Building what?" We might ask, in turn, when you say, "The field ploughs well,"--"Ploughs what?" "Wheat sells well,"--"Sells what?" If usage allows us to say, "Wheat sells at a dollar," in a sense that is not active, why may we not say, "Wheat is selling at a dollar," in a sense that is not active?'--Hart's 'Grammar,' p. 76. 'The prevailing practice of the best authors is in favor of the simple form; as, "The house is building."'--Wells' 'School Grammar,' p. 148. 'Several other expressions of this sort now and then occur, such as the newfangled and most uncouth solecism "_is being done_," for the good old English idiom "_is doing_"--an absurd periphrasis driving out a pointed and pithy turn of the English language.'--'N. A. Review,' quoted by Mr. Wells, p. 148. 'The phrase, "is being built," and others of a similar kind, have been for a few years insinuating themselves into our language; still they are not English.'--Harrison's 'Rise, Progress, and Present Structure of the English Language.' 'This mode of expression [the house is being built] is becoming quite common. It is liable, however, to several important objections. It appears formal and pedantic. It has not, as far as I know, the support of any respectable grammarian. The easy and natural expression is, "The house is building."'--Prof. J. W. Gibbs."
Mr. Richard Grant White, in his "Words and Their Uses," expresses his opinion of the locution _is being_ in this wise: "In bad eminence, at the head of those intruders in language which to many persons seem to be of established respectability, but the right of which to be at all is not fully admitted, stands out the form of speech _is being done_, or rather, _is being_, which, about seventy or eighty years ago, began to affront the eye, torment the ear, and assault the common sense of the speaker of plain and idiomatic English." Mr. White devotes thirty pages of his book to the discussion of the subject, and adduces evidence that is more than sufficient to convince those who are content with an _ex parte_ examination that "it can hardly be that such an incongruous and ridiculous form of speech as _is being done_ was contrived by a man who, by any stretch of the name, should be included among grammarians."
Mr. George P. Marsh, in his "Lectures on the English Language," says that the deviser of the locution in question was "some grammatical pretender," and that it is "an awkward neologism, which neither convenience, intelligibility, nor syntactical congruity demands."
To these gentlemen, and to those who are of their way of thinking with regard to _is being_, Dr. Fitzedward Hall replies at some length, in an article published in "Scribner's Monthly" for April, 1872. Dr. Hall writes:
"'All really well educated in the English tongue lament the many innovations introduced into our language from America; and I doubt if more than one of these novelties deserve acceptation. That one is, substituting a compound participle for an active verb used in a neuter signification: for instance, "The house is _being built_," instead of, "The house is _building_."' Such is the assertion and such is the opinion of some anonymous luminary,[8] who, for his liberality in welcoming a supposed Americanism, is somewhat in advance of the herd of his countrymen. Almost any popular expression which is considered as a novelty, a Briton is pretty certain to assume, off-hand, to have originated on our side of the Atlantic. Of the assertion I have quoted, no proof is offered; and there is little probability that its author had any to offer. 'Are being,' in the phrase 'are being thrown up,'[9] is spoken of in 'The North American Review'[10] as 'an outrage upon English idiom, "to be detested, abhorred, execrated, and given over to six thousand" penny-paper editors'; and the fact is, that phrases of the form here pointed at have hitherto enjoyed very much less favor with us than with the English.
"As lately as 1860, Dr. Worcester, referring to _is being built_, etc., while acknowledging that 'this new form has been used by some respectable writers,' speaks of it as having 'been introduced' 'within a few years.' Mr. Richard Grant White, by a most peculiar process of ratiocination, endeavors to prove that what Dr. Worcester calls 'this new form' came into existence just fifty-six years ago. He premises that in Jarvis's translation of 'Don Quixote,' published in 1742, there occurs 'were carrying,' and that this, in the edition of 1818, is sophisticated into 'were being carried.' 'This change,' continues our logician, 'and the appearance of _is being_ with a perfect participle in a very few books published between A. D. 1815 and 1820, indicate the former period as that of the origin of this phraseology, which, although more than half a century old, is still pronounced a novelty as well as a nuisance.'
"Who, in the next place, devised our modern imperfects passive? The question is not, originally, of my asking; but, as the learned are at open feud on the subject, it should not be passed by in silence. Its deviser is, more than likely, as undiscoverable as the name of the valiant antediluvian who first tasted an oyster. But the deductive character of the miscreant is another thing; and hereon there is a war between the philosophers. Mr. G. P. Marsh, as if he had actually spotted the wretched creature, passionately and categorically denounces him as 'some grammatical pretender.' 'But,' replies Mr. White, 'that it is the work of any grammarian is more than doubtful. Grammarians, with all their faults, do not deform language with fantastic solecisms, or even seek to enrich it with new and startling verbal combinations. They rather resist novelty, and devote themselves to formulating that which use has already established.' In the same page with this, Mr. White compliments the great unknown as 'some precise and feeble-minded soul,' and elsewhere calls him 'some pedantic writer of the last generation.' To add even one word toward a solution of the knotty point here indicated transcends, I confess, my utmost competence. It is painful to picture to one's self the agonizing emotions with which certain philologists would contemplate an authentic effigy of the Attila of speech who, by his _is being built_ or _is being done_, first offered violence to the whole circle of the proprieties. So far as I have observed, the first grammar that exhibits them is that of Mr. R. S. Skillern, M. A., the first edition of which was published at Gloucester in 1802. Robert Southey had not, on the 9th of October, 1795, been out of his minority quite two months when, evidently delivering himself in a way that had already become familiar enough, he wrote of 'a fellow whose uttermost upper grinder _is being torn out_ by the roots by a mutton-fisted barber.'[11] This is in a letter. But repeated instances of the same kind of expression are seen in Southey's graver writings. Thus, in his 'Colloquies,' etc.,[12] we read of 'such [nunneries] as at this time _are being reëstablished_.'
"'While my hand _was being drest_ by Mr. Young, I spoke for the first time,' wrote Coleridge, in March, 1797.
"Charles Lamb speaks of realities which '_are being acted_ before us,' and of 'a man who _is being strangled_.'
"Walter Savage Landor, in an imaginary conversation, represents Pitt as saying: 'The man who possesses them may read Swedenborg and Kant while he _is being tossed_ in a blanket.' Again: 'I have seen nobles, men and women, kneeling in the street before these bishops, when no ceremony of the Catholic Church _was being performed_.' Also, in a translation from Catullus: 'Some criminal _is being tried_ for murder.'
"Nor does Mr. De Quincey scruple at such English as 'made and _being made_,' 'the bride that _was being married_ to him,' and 'the shafts of Heaven _were_ even now _being forged_.' On one occasion he writes, 'Not done, not even (according to modern purism) _being done_'; as if 'purism' meant exactness, rather than the avoidance of neoterism.
"I need, surely, name no more, among the dead, who found _is being built_, or the like, acceptable. 'Simple-minded common people and those of culture were alike protected against it by their attachment to the idiom of their mother tongue, with which they felt it to be directly at variance.' So Mr. White informs us. But the writers whom I have quoted are formidable exceptions. Even Mr. White will scarcely deny to them the title of 'people of culture.'
"So much for offenders past repentance; and we all know that the sort of phraseology under consideration is daily becoming more and more common. The best written of the English reviews, magazines, and journals are perpetually marked by it; and some of the choicest of living English writers employ it freely. Among these, it is enough if I specify Bishop Wilberforce and Mr. Charles Reade.[13]
"Extracts from Bishop Jewel downward being also given, Lord Macaulay, Mr. Dickens, 'The Atlantic Monthly,' and 'The Brooklyn Eagle' are alleged by Mr. White in proof that people still use such phrases as 'Chelsea Hospital _was building_,' and 'the train _was preparing_.' 'Hence we see,' he adds,[14] 'that the form _is being done_, _is being made_, _is being built_, lacks the support of authoritative usage from the period of the earliest classical English to the present day.' I fully concur with Mr. White in regarding 'neither "The Brooklyn Eagle" nor Mr. Dickens as a very high authority in the use of language'; yet, when he has renounced the aid of these contemned straws, what has he to rest his inference on, as to the present day, but the practice of Lord Macaulay and 'The Atlantic Monthly'? Those who think fit will bow to the dictatorship here prescribed to them; but there may be those with whom the classic sanction of Southey, Coleridge, and Landor will not be wholly void of weight. All scholars are aware that, to convey the sense of the imperfects passive, our ancestors, centuries ago, prefixed, with _is_, etc., _in_, afterward corrupted into _a_, to a verbal substantive. 'The house _is in building_' could be taken to mean nothing but _ædes ædificantur_; and, when the _in_ gave place to _a_,[15] it was still manifest enough, from the context, that _building_ was governed by a preposition. The second stage of change, however, namely, when the _a_ was omitted, entailed, in many cases, great danger of confusion. In the early part of the last century, when English was undergoing what was then thought to be purification, the polite world substantially resigned _is a-building_ to the vulgar. Toward the close of the same century, when, under the influence of free thought, it began to be felt that even ideas had a right to faithful and unequivocal representation, a just resentment of ambiguity was evidenced in the creation of _is being built_. The lament is too late that the instinct of reformation did not restore the old form. It has gone forever; and we are now to make the best of its successors. '"The brass _is forging_,"' in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, is 'a vicious expression, probably corrupted from a phrase more pure, but now somewhat obsolete, ... "the brass _is a-forging_."' Yet, with a true Tory's timidity and aversion to change, it is not surprising that he went on preferring what he found established, vicious as it confessedly was, to the end. But was the expression 'vicious' solely because it was a corruption? In 1787 William Beckford wrote as follows of the fortune-tellers of Lisbon: '_I saw one dragging into light_, as I passed by the ruins of a palace thrown down by the earthquake. Whether a familiar of the Inquisition was griping her in his clutches, or _whether she was taking to account by some disappointed votary_, I will not pretend to answer.' Are the expressions here italicized either perspicuous or graceful? Whatever we are to have in their place, we should be thankful to get quit of them.
"Inasmuch as, concurrently with _building_ for the active participle, and _being built_ for the corresponding passive participle, we possessed the former, with _is_ prefixed, as the active present imperfect, it is in rigid accordance with the symmetry of our verb that, to construct the passive present-imperfect, we prefix _is_ to the latter, producing the form _is being built_. Such, in its greatest simplicity, is the procedure which, as will be seen, has provoked a very levanter of ire and vilification. But anything that is new will be excepted to by minds of a certain order. Their tremulous and impatient dread of removing ancient landmarks even disqualifies them for thoroughly investigating its character and pretensions. In _has built_ and _will build_, we find the active participle perfect and the active infinitive subjoined to auxiliaries; and so, in _has been built_ and _will be built_, the passive participle perfect and the passive infinitive are subjoined to auxiliaries. In _is building_ and _is being built_, we have, in strict harmony with the constitution of the perfect and future tenses, an auxiliary followed by the active participle present and the passive participle present. _Built_ is determined as active or passive by the verbs which qualify it, _have_ and _be_; and the grammarians are right in considering it, when embodied in _has built_, as active, since its analogue, embodied in _has been built_, is the exclusively passive _been built_. Besides this, _has been_ + _built_ would signify something like _has existed, built_,[16] which is plainly neuter. We are debarred, therefore, from such an analysis; and, by parity of reasoning, we may not resolve _is being built_ into _is being_ + _built_. It must have been an inspiration of analogy, felt or unfelt, that suggested the form I am discussing. _Is being_ + _built_, as it can mean, pretty nearly, only _exists, built_, would never have been proposed as adequate to convey any but a neuter sense; whereas it was perfectly natural for a person aiming to express a passive sense to prefix _is_ to the passive concretion _being built_.[17]
"The analogical justification of _is being built_ which I have brought forward is so obvious that, as it occurred to myself more than twenty years ago, so it must have occurred spontaneously to hundreds besides. It is very singular that those who, like Mr. Marsh and Mr. White, have pondered long and painfully over locutions typified by _is being built_, should have missed the real ground of their grammatical defensibleness, and should have warmed themselves, in their opposition to them, into uttering opinions which no calm judgment can accept.
"'One who _is being beaten_' is, to Archbishop Whately, 'uncouth English.' '"The bridge _is being built_," and other phrases of the like kind, have pained the eye' of Mr. David Booth. Such phrases, according to Mr. M. Harrison, 'are not English.' To Professor J. W. Gibbs 'this mode of expression ... appears formal and pedantic'; and 'the easy and natural expression is, "The house _is building_."'[18] In all this, little or nothing is discernible beyond sheer prejudice, the prejudice of those who resolve to take their stand against an innovation, regardless of its utility, and who are ready to find an argument against it in any random epithet of disparagement provoked by unreasoning aversion. And the more recent denouncers in the same line have no more reason on their side than their elder brethren.