123. Nouns Having Two Plurals.

A few words have two plurals, each with a different

124. The Plurals of "Miss" and "Mr."

There are two forms in use, the latter being prefer

able:

1. the Miss Browns; the Mr. Parkers.

2. the Misses Brown; the Messrs. Parker.

125. Plurals of Letters, Figures, and Words.

Letters, figures, and names of words form their plurals by the addition either of s or of 's. The best usage favors 's:

Use fewer I's and and's in your composition.

Your I's are hard to distinguish from 7's.

126. Caution. Do not use kind or sort as a plural. The plurals are kinds and sorts. We may say, there

fore, this kind (or sort) or that kind (or sort), but not these kind (or sort) or those kind (or sort).

EXERCISES
I

Give the plural of each of the following words:

Use that, those, this, these correctly in the following

Use is, are, has, have correctly in the following sen

You will understand the uses of the three cases if you understand thoroughly the relation of the words to one another in these two simple sentences:

1. John found Fido in Henry's yard.

2. I saw him on my porch.

"John" and "I" are in the nominative case, because they are the subjects of the sentences; "Fido" and "him" are in the objective case, because they are the direct objects of "found" and "saw"; "yard" and "porch" are also in the objective case, because they are the objects of the prepositions "in" and "on"; "Henry's" and "my" are in the possessive case, because they are possessive modifiers of "yard" and "porch.

It will be seen that pronouns undergo more changes of form to express case relations than do nouns.

128. Case is that function of nouns and pronouns by which, with or without change of form, they express the relations of subject, object, or possessive modifier.

129. The subject of every sentence is in the Nominative Case.

130. The object of every verb and of every preposition is in the Objective Case.

131. A noun or pronoun denoting possession is in the Possessive Case.

132. The Declension or Inflection of a noun or pronoun means the naming of its three cases in both numbers.

133. Declension.

The following nouns may be taken as types of declension; one pronoun is added for the purpose of comparison:

1

(1) What two cases are alike in all nouns?

(2) How does he differ in this respect from nouns? (3) With the forms of he before you, see if you cannot decline she.

(4) Use in sentences all the forms of the words that have just been declined.

134. The Forms of the Nominative Case.

The nominative case shows the noun or pronoun in its normal form. Whenever you look up a noun or a pronoun in the dictionary, you find it given in the nominative case. Many nouns in Old English varied their forms or endings to show to the eye whether they were nominative or objective. When King Alfred wrote "This gift is costly," he used the nominative form "giefu"; when he wrote "I have the gift," he used the objective form "giefe." But Modern English nouns show no distinction of form in these two