Ed,
Thanks for the Jesperson quotation. It's beautiful!
Paul


----- Original Message ----
From: Edgar Schuster <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 12:28:13 PM
Subject: Re: Anthimeria: Hell in a handbasket

Bill (and others),
     For what it's worth---and I'm not sure it's worth much---I have a Murray definition of noun as "the name of any thing that exists, or of which we have any notion."  Lowth wrote "the Name of a thing; of whatever we conceive in any way to subsist, or of which we have any notion."
     Maybe this comment from Otto Jespersen is worth a lot more:  "If there is one thing I dislike in grammar, it is definitions (of parts of speech) too often met with in our textbooks.  They are neither exhaustive nor true; they have not, and cannot have, the precision and clearness of the definitions found in textbooks of mathematics . . . .  And thus we might go on to the definitions found even in the best grammars: they are unsatisfactory, all of them, and I do not think they are necessary."
The English Journal [!!!], 1924

Ed Schuster


**************
Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best 2008.
(http://citysbest.aol.com?ncid=aolacg00050000000102) To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" 
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ 

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/