Grammatical Errors

"The correctne of the expre ion grammatical errors has been disputed. 'How,' it has been asked, 'can an error be grammatical?' How, it may be replied, can we with propriety say, grammatically incorrect ? Yet we can do so. "No one will question the propriety of saying grammatically correct . Yet the expre ion is the acknowledgment of things grammatically in correct . Likewise the phrase grammatical correctne implies the existence of grammatical in correctne . If, then, a sentence is grammatically incorrect , or, what is the same thing, has grammatical incorrectne , it includes a grammatical error . Grammatically incorrect signifies incorrect with relation to the rules of grammar. Grammatical errors signifies errors with relation to the rules of grammar . "They who ridicule the phrase grammatical errors , and substitute the phrase errors in grammar , make an egregious mistake. Can there, it may be asked with some show of reason, be an error in grammar? Why, grammar is a science founded in our nature, referable to our ideas of time, relation, method; imperfect, doubtle , as to the system by which it is represented; but surely we can speak of error in that which is error's criterion! All this is hypercritical, but hypercriticism must be met with its own weapons. "Of the two expre ions— a grammatical error , and an error in grammar —the former is preferable. If one's judgment can accept neither, one must relinquish the belief in the po ibility of tersely expre ing the idea of an offense against grammatical rules. Indeed, it would be difficult to expre the idea even by circumlocution. Should some one say, 'This sentence is, according to the rules of grammar, incorrect.' 'What!' the hypercritic may exclaim, 'incorrect! and according to the rules of grammar!' 'This sentence, then,' the corrected person would reply, 'contains an error in grammar.' 'Nonsense!' the hypercritic may shout, 'grammar is a science; you may be wrong in its interpretation, but principles are immutable!' "After this, it need scarcely be added that, grammatically, no one can make a mistake, that there can be no grammatical mistake, that there can be no bad grammar, and, consequently, no bad English; a very pleasant conclusion, which would save us a great amount of trouble if it did not lack the insignificant quality of being true."—"Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech."