The Grammar of English Grammars. Goold Brown
goody; hero, heroine; landgrave, landgravine; margrave, margravine; marquis, marchioness; palsgrave, palsgravine; sakeret, sakerhawk; sewer, sewster; sultan, sultana; tzar, tzarina; tyrant, tyranness; widower, widow.
OBS. 12.—The proper names of persons almost always designate their sex; for it has been found convenient to make the names of women different from those of men. We have also some appellatives which correspond to each other, distinguishing the sexes by their distinct application to each: as, bachelor, maid; beau, belle; boy, girl; bridegroom, bride; brother, sister; buck, doe; boar, sow; bull, cow; cock, hen; colt, filly; dog, bitch; drake, duck; earl, countess; father, mother; friar, nun; gander, goose; grandsire, grandam; hart, roe; horse, mare; husband, wife; king, queen; lad, lass; lord, lady; male, female; man, woman; master, mistress; Mister, Missis; (Mr., Mrs.;) milter, spawner; monk, nun; nephew, niece; papa, mamma; rake, jilt; ram, ewe; ruff, reeve; sire, dam; sir, madam; sloven, slut; son, daughter; stag, hind; steer, heifer; swain, nymph; uncle, aunt; wizard, witch; youth, damsel; young man, maiden.
OBS. 13.—The people of a particular country are commonly distinguished by some name derived from that of their country; as, Americans, Africans, Egyptians, Russians, Turks. Such words are sometimes called gentile names. There are also adjectives, of the same origin, if not the same form, which correspond with them. "Gentile names are for the most part considered as masculine, and the feminine is denoted by the gentile adjective and the noun woman: as, a Spaniard, a Spanish woman; a Pole, or Polander, a Polish woman. But, in a few instances, we always use a compound of the adjective with man or woman: as, an Englishman, an Englishwoman; a Welshman, a Welshwoman; an Irishman, an Irishwoman; a Frenchman, a Frenchwoman; a Dutchman, a Dutchwoman: and in these cases the adjective is employed as the collective noun; as, the Dutch, the French, &c. A Scotchman, and a Scot, are both in use; but the latter is not common in prose writers: though some employ it, and these generally adopt the plural, Scots, with the definite article, as the collective term."—Churchill's New Gram., p. 70.
OBS. 14.—The names of things without life, used literally, are always of the neuter gender: as, "When Cleopatra fled, Antony pursued her in a five-oared galley; and, coming along side of her ship, entered it without being seen by her."—Goldsmith's Rome, p. 160. "The sun, high as it is, has its business assigned; and so have the stars."—Collier's Antoninus, p. 138. But inanimate objects are often represented figuratively as having sex. Things remarkable for power, greatness, or sublimity, are spoken of as masculine; as, the sun, time, death, sleep, fear, anger, winter, war. Things beautiful, amiable, or prolific, are spoken of as feminine; as, a ship, the moon, the earth, nature, fortune, knowledge, hope, spring, peace. Figurative gender is indicated only by the personal pronouns of the singular number: as, "When we say of the sun, He is setting; or of a ship, She sails well."—L. Murray. For these two objects, the sun and a ship, this phraseology is so common, that the literal construction quoted above is rarely met with.
OBS. 15.—When any inanimate object or abstract quality is distinctly personified, and presented to the imagination in the character of a living and intelligent being, there is necessarily a change of the gender of the word; for, whenever personality is thus ascribed to what is literally neuter, there must be an assumption of one or the other sex: as, "The Genius of Liberty is awakened, and springs up; she sheds her divine light and creative powers upon the two hemispheres. A great nation, astonished at seeing herself free, stretches her arms from one extremity of the earth to the other, and embraces the first nation that became so."—Abbé Fauchet. But there is an inferior kind of personification, or of what is called such, in which, so far as appears, the gender remains neuter: as, "The following is an instance of personification and apostrophe united: 'O thou sword of the Lord! how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put thyself up into thy scabbard, rest, and be still! How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Askelon, and against the sea-shore? there hath he appointed it.'"—Murray's Gram., p. 348. See Jer., xlvii, 6.
OBS. 16.—If what is called personification, does not always imply a change of gender and an ascription of sex, neither does a mere ascription of sex to what is literally of no sex, necessarily imply a personification; for there may be sex without personality, as we see in brute animals. Hence the gender of a brute animal personified in a fable, may be taken literally as before; and the gender which is figuratively ascribed to the sun, the moon, or a ship, is merely metaphorical. In the following sentence, nature is animated and made feminine by a metaphor, while a lifeless object bearing the name of Venus, is spoken of as neuter: "Like that conceit of old, which declared that the Venus of Gnidos was not the work of Praxiteles, since nature herself had concreted the boundary surface of its beauty."—Rush, on the Voice, p. xxv.
OBS. 17.—"In personifications regard must be had to propriety in determining the gender. Of most of the passions and moral qualities of man the ancients formed deities, as they did of various other things: and, when these are personified, they are usually made male or female, according as they were gods or goddesses in the pagan mythology. The same rule applies in other cases: and thus the planet Jupiter will be masculine; Venus, feminine: the ocean, Oce=anus, masculine: rivers, months, and winds, the same: the names of places, countries, and islands, feminine."—Churchill's Gram., p. 71.
OBS. 18.—These suggestions are worthy of consideration, but, for the gender which ought to be adopted in personifications, there seems to be no absolute general rule, or none which English writers have observed with much uniformity. It is well, however, to consider what is most common in each particular case, and abide by it. In the following examples, the sex ascribed is not that under which these several objects are commonly figured; for which reason, the sentences are perhaps erroneous:—
"Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."—Cowper.
"But hoary Winter, unadorned and bare, Dwells in the dire retreat, and freezes there; There she assembles all her blackest storms, And the rude hail in rattling tempests forms."—Addison.
"Her pow'r extends o'er all things that have breath, A cruel tyrant, and her name is Death."—Sheffield.
CASES.
Cases, in grammar, are modifications that distinguish the relations of nouns or pronouns to other words.
There are three cases; the nominative, the possessive, and the objective.
The nominative case is that form or state of a noun or pronoun, which usually denotes the subject of a finite verb: as, The boy runs; I run.
The subject of a finite verb is that which answers to who or what before it; as, "The boy runs."—Who runs? "The boy." Boy is therefore here in the nominative case.
The possessive case is that form or state of a noun or pronoun, which usually denotes the relation of property: as, The boy's hat; my hat.
The possessive case of nouns is formed, in the singular number, by adding to the nominative s preceded by an apostrophe; and, in the plural, when the nominative ends in s, by adding an apostrophe only: as, singular, boy's; plural, boys';—sounded alike, but written differently.
The objective case is that form or state of a noun or pronoun which usually denotes the object of a verb, participle, or preposition: as, I know the boy, having seen him at school; and he knows me.
The object of a verb, participle, or preposition, is that which answers to whom or what after it; as, "I know the boy."—I know whom? "The boy." Boy is therefore here in the objective case.
The nominative and the objective of nouns, are