no difference, _except that_ some are heavier
than others."--"We may be playful, _and yet_ innocent; grave, _and yet_
corrupt."--_Murray's Key_, p. 166.

OBS. 7.--Conjunctions have no grammatical modifications, and are
consequently incapable of any formal agreement or disagreement with other
words; yet their import as connectives, copulative or disjunctive, must be
carefully observed, lest we write or speak them improperly. Example of
error: "Prepositions are _generally set before_ nouns _and_
pronouns."--_Wilbur's Gram._, p. 20. Here _and_ should be _or_; because,
although a preposition usually governs a noun _or_ a pronoun, it seldom
governs both at once. And besides, the assertion above seems very naturally
to mean, that nouns and pronouns _are generally preceded_ by
prepositions--as gross an error as dullness could invent! L. Murray also
says of prepositions: "They are, _for the most_ part, put before nouns
_and_ pronouns."--_Gram._, p. 117. So Felton: "They generally stand before
nouns _and_ pronouns."--_Analytic and Prac. Gram._, p. 61. The blunder
however came originally from Lowth, and out of the following admirable
enigma: "Prepositions, _standing by themselves in construction_, are put
before nouns _and_ pronouns; _and_ sometimes after verbs; but _in this sort
of composition_ they are _chiefly prefixed_ to verbs: as, _to outgo, to
overcome_."--_Lowth's Gram._, p. 66.

OBS. 8.--The opposition suggested by the disjunctive particle _or_, is
sometimes merely nominal, or verbal: as, "That object is a triangle, _or_
figure contained under three right lines."--_Harris_. "So if we say, that
figure is a sphere, _or_ a globe, _or_ a ball."--_Id., Hermes_, p. 258. In
these cases, the disjunction consists in nothing but an alternative of
words; for the terms connected describe or name the same thing. For this
sense of _or_, the Latins had a peculiar particle, _sive_, which they
called _Subdisjunctiva_, a _Subdisjunctive_: as, "Alexander _sive_ Paris;
Mars _sive_ Mavors."--_Harris's Hermes_, p. 258. In English, the
conjunction _or_ is very frequently equivocal: as, "They were both more
ancient than Zoroaster _or_ Zerdusht."--_Campbell's Rhet._, p. 250;
_Murray's Gram._, p. 297. Here, if the reader does not happen to know that
_Zoroaster_ and _Zerdusht_ mean the same person, he will be very likely to
mistake the sense. To avoid this ambiguity, we substitute, (in judicial
proceedings,) the Latin adverb _alias, otherwise