foundation on which grammar must rest.

[Sidenote: _Spoken English_.]

Here and there also will be quoted words and phrases from _spoken_ or
_colloquial English_, by which is meant the free, unstudied
expressions of ordinary conversation and communication among
intelligent people.

These quotations will often throw light on obscure constructions,
since they preserve turns of expressions that have long since perished
from the literary or standard English.

[Sidenote: _Vulgar English_.]

Occasionally, too, reference will be made to _vulgar English,_--the
speech of the uneducated and ignorant,--which will serve to illustrate
points of syntax once correct, or standard, but now undoubtedly bad
grammar.

The following pages will cover, then, three divisions:--

Part I. The Parts of Speech, and Inflections.

Part II. Analysis of Sentences.

Part III. The Uses of Words, or Syntax.