Foolish, foolisher, foolishest: Eighteenth-century English grammars and the comparison of adjectives and adverbs

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Table of contents vii
3. Grammars, grammarians and grammar writing: An introduction 1
4. Part 1. Background
5. Background: Introduction 17
6. The eighteenth-century grammarians as language experts 21
7. Grammar writers in eighteenth-century Britain: A community of practice or a discourse community? 37
8. Eighteenth-century grammars and book catalogues 57
9. Part 2. Reception and the market for grammars
10. Reception and the market for grammars: Introduction 79
11. Bellum Grammaticale (1712) … A battle of books and a battle for the market 81
12. The 1760s: Grammars, grammarians and the booksellers 101
13. Mid-century grammars and their reception in the Monthly Review and the Critical Review 125
14. Part 3. The grammarians
15. The grammarians: Introduction 145
16. Ann Fisher’s A New Grammar, or was it Daniel Fisher s work? 149
17. Joseph Priestley’s two Rudiments of English Grammar: 1761 and 1768 177
18. Eighteenth-century teacher-grammarians and the education of “proper” women 191
19. “Borrowing a few passages”: Lady Ellenor Fenn and her use of sources 223
20. Part 4. The grammars
21. The grammars: Introduction 247
22. Preposition stranding in the eighteenth century: Something to talk about 251
23. Foolish, foolisher, foolishest: Eighteenth-century English grammars and the comparison of adjectives and adverbs 279
24. On normative grammarians and the double marking of degree 289
25. Backmatter 311