A Handbook of the English Language

Although published around 1850, and extremely technical, the language used and principles expressed by this author are very easily comprehended by the reader -- except when he spins out phrases, sentences and even paragraphs in Latin, Greek or a Germanic language without benefit of translation. Apparently in those days you were expected to master those languages before your English. If reading this book on the Web, be fore-armed with a (Windows-based) translation program such as Dicter to navigate these 450+ pages of profuse and meticulously organized declensions, inflections, conjugations, derivations, quotations, and so forth. The author makes his analysis of the English language a pursuit, using a method not unlike that of Sherlock Holmes, of the truth, examining and weighing all the clues, and arriving at his conclusions, rather than starting with them. An altogether fascinating study for the etymologically inclined.