An Improved Grammar of the English Language.

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Creator

Noah Webster

Title

An Improved Grammar of the English Language.

Coverage

New Haven

Publisher

Sidney Babcock

Date

1842

Subject

New ed.

Description

In 1842—58 years after his first English grammar (no. 23) and just a year before his death—the elderly Noah Webster issued this newly “improved” grammar. Although Lindley Murray had been dead for 16 years, Webster was still plagued by Murray’s popularity. All the British grammars were “very imperfect and . . . very erroneous.” He contradicted Murray whenever he could: “the contrary rule in Murray is egregiously wrong.” And he persisted in oddball views: “Grammars tell us, that is sometimes a conjunction. This is not true; it is always a pronoun.”