ined under any other name; and, as for the term
_exclamation_, which is preferred also by Cutler, Felton, Spencer, and S.
W. Clark, it appears to me much less suitable than the old one, because it
is less specific. Any words uttered loudly in the same breath, are _an
exclamation_. This name therefore is too general; it includes other parts
of speech than interjections; and it was but a foolish whim in Dr. Webster,
to prefer it in his dictionaries. When David "cried _with a loud voice_, O
my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!" [442] he uttered _two_
exclamations, but they included all his words. He did not, like my critic
above, set off his first word with an interrogation point, or any other
point. But, says Peirce, "These words are _used in exclaiming_, and are
what all know them to be, _exclamations_; as I call them. May I not _call_
them what they _are_?"--_Ibid._ Yes, truly. But to _exclaim_ is to _cry
out_, and consequently every _outcry_ is an _exclamation_; though there are
two chances to one, that _no interjection_ at all be used by the bawler. As
good an argument, or better, may be framed against every one of this
gentleman's professed improvements in grammar; and as for his punctuation
and orthography, any reader may be presumed capable of seeing that they are
not fit to be proposed as models.

OBS. 19.--I like my position of the word "_alas_" better than that which
Peirce supposes to be its only right place; and, certainly, his rule for
the location of words of this sort, as well as his notion that they must
stand alone, is as false, as it is new. The obvious misstatement of Lowth,
Adam, Gould, Murray, Churchill, Alger, Smith, Guy, Ingersoll, and others,
that, "Interjections are words thrown in between the parts of _a
sentence_," I had not only excluded from my grammars, but expressly
censured in them. It was not, therefore, to prop any error of the old
theorists, that I happened to set one interjection "_where_" according to
this new oracle, "_it never belonged_." And if any body but he has been
practically misled by their mistake, it is not I, but more probably some of
the following authors, here cited for his refutation: "I fear, _alas!_ for
my life."--_Fisk's Gram._, p. 89. "I have been occupied, _alas_! with
trifles."--_Murray's Gr., Ex. for Parsing_, p. 5; _Guy's_, p. 56. "We
eagerly pursue pleasure, but, _alas!_ we often mistake the road."--_Smith's
New Gram._, p. 40, "To-morrow, _alas!_ thou _mayes