379^* -on personal pronouns. 201 



*our pronoun for the masculine gender is a diffeient 

 Tvord from that for the feminine : Thus, 



" Mr A presents his compliments to Mrs B, 

 *' will be glad to have the pleasure of her company 

 '** to dinner, when he hopes^I^f will be entertained by 

 " the singing of Signora Martini, as he knows _y&f is 

 " pafsionately fond of music ; and it will always 

 •' give him a very sensible pleasure to contribute to 

 *' her amusement." , 



Here no sort of ambiguity occurs j and it is 

 plain that as little would be perceived in the former 

 case, had we a different word for each of the parties 

 when of the same gender. 



But as it frequently happens that we have occa- 

 sion to mention, not one person only, but several 

 others, and to repeat circumstances relating to each, 

 the confusion that in all such cases arises in the pre- 

 sent imperfect state of our language, when this mode 

 of writing is adopted, is such as to render it quite 

 unintelligible. Nor could this perplexity be remo- 

 ved by adopting one variation only for each gender, 

 but several others. This I ftiall endeavour to exem-- 

 plify in the following imaginary card. 



1 22 



" John presents compliments to James, begs he will 



ja,r.ei 



^ . 5 



" be so kind as call upon George *, and bring hini with 



George 



• In this cximple the nouns John, Jimes, and Geirge, came in orJar 



I.'/, ^d, 3^. To mark the order, thts; figiies are placed above che nro- 



Boun den'rting-them respectively, a.id below the line the name denoted by 



ti e pronouns written. The exam.ves, it is hoped, rjiU thus be intellig b c. 



TOL. li. C C f 



