Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 105, November 1, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 105, November 1, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
Then comes his exposure of my unhappy mistake: "H. WALTER mistakes the
adjective _feminine_ ἐν πᾶσι as meaning _all men_." Really, had
I known that πᾶσι was an adjective feminine, I could scarcely
have fallen into the mistake of supposing it to mean _all men_. But many
of your readers will be likely to feel some sympathy for my error, while
they learn from CEPHAS that the ordinary Greek grammars, in which they
can have proceeded but a very few pages before they read and were called
upon to repeat the cases of πας, πασα, παν, were quite wrong in
teaching us that though πᾶσι might be either masculine or
neuter, it must not be taken for a feminine form. But before we correct
this error in one of the first pages of our grammar, I presume that we
should all like to know from what recondite source CEPHAS has discovered
that πασι, and not πασαις, is the feminine form of this
constantly-recurring adjective.
But farther, p. 193. will show that I did not give him a right to assume
that I should construe πασι "all _men_." For under my
_mistaken_ view of its being masculine, I thought the weaker sex was
included; and being myself a married man, I knew that marriage
comprehends women as well as men.
But there is still more to be learnt from the criticisms of CEPHAS,
which the learned world never knew before. For, having told us that
πᾶσι is an adjective feminine, he adds, "it signifies here _in
all things_;" whereas the grammars have long taught that _things_ must
not be understood unless the adjective be neuter. Perhaps he had better
concede that the grammars have not been wrong in allowing that πᾶσι
may be neuter; and then, as we know that it is also masculine, and
he knows it to be feminine, it must be admitted to be of all genders,
and so young learners will be spared all the trouble of distinguishing
between them. If it be admitted that πᾶσι is neuter here, it
may signify _all things_.
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