_, while the noun literally agrees with that
which immediately precedes it, and with the other merely by implication or
supplement, under the figure which is called _zeugma_: as, "Two or more
nouns joined together by _one_ or _more_ copulative conjunctions."--
_Lowth's Gram._, p. 75; _L. Murray's_, 2d Ed., p. 106. "He speaks not to
_one_ or a _few_ judges, but to a large assembly."--_Blair's Rhet._, p.
280. "_More_ than _one_ object at a time."--_Murray's Gram._, 8vo, p. 301.
See Obs. 10th on Rule 17th.

[374] Double comparatives and double superlatives, such as, "The _more
serener_ spirit,"--"The _most straitest_ sect,"--are noticed by Latham and
Child, in their syntax, as expressions which "we occasionally find, even in
good writers," and are truly stated to be "_pleonastic_;" but, forbearing
to censure them as errors, these critics seem rather to justify them as
pleonasms allowable. Their indecisive remarks are at fault, not only
because they are indecisive, but because they are both liable and likely to
mislead the learner.--See their _Elementary Grammar_, p. 155.

[375] The learned William B. Fowle strangely imagines all pronouns to be
_adjectives_, belonging to nouns expressed or understood after them; as,
"We kings require _them_ (subjects) to obey _us_ (kings)."--_The True
English Gram._, p. 21. "_They_ grammarians, [i. e.] _those_ grammarians.
_They_ is an other spelling of _the_, and of course means _this, that,
these, those_, as the case may be."--_Ibid._ According to him, then, "_them
grammarians_," for "_those grammarians_," is perfectly good English; and so
is "_they grammarians_," though the vulgar do not take care to _vary this
adjective_, "as _the case_ may be." His notion of subjoining a noun to
every pronoun, is a fit counterpart to that of some other grammarians, who
imagine an ellipsis of a pronoun after almost every noun. Thus: "The
personal _Relatives_, for the most part, _are suppressed_ when the Noun is
expressed: as, Man (he) is the Lord of this lower world. Woman (she) is the
fairest Part of the Creation. The Palace (it) stands on a Hill. Men and
Women (they) are rational Creatures."--_British Gram._, p. 234;
_Buchanan's_, 131. It would have been worth a great deal to some men, to
have known _what an Ellipsis is_; and the man who shall yet make such
knowledge common, ought to be forever honoured in the schools.

[376] "An illegitimate and ungrammatical use of these words, _either_ and
_neithe