Do you recall how hard it was to learn the rules of English grammar when you were a kid? Count your blessings that you aren't old enough to have studied Elements of English Grammar with Progressive Exercises in Parsing, first published in 1828 in Boston.

A friend recently gave me a copy of that tiny but tough textbook -- the second edition, printed in 1831. Flipping through it made me glad I wasn't studying English back when we had just fought wars to get out from under the country that invented the language in the first place.

The copyright page carries a notice from the Massachusetts District Clerk's Office that the book was registered "on the twelfth day of December, A.D. 1828, in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America ..." When was the last time you read a book that reckoned time by both A.D. and A.B. (after British)?

The author, John Frost, was the principal of Mayhew Grammar School in Boston, and his rules are still valuable today. Most of them, anyway; there have been some changes in 178 years.

Frost says, for example, that when conjugating "to have," you must say: "I have; thou hast; he, she or it hath or has; we have; ye or you have." He mandates "thou hadst, thou shalt or wilt have; thou mayst, canst or will be."

Let's not forget "thou mightst, couldst, wouldst, or shouldst." Today, we just say "woulda, coulda, shoulda" and drive on.

He tells us that the past tense of eat is "eat or ate," but informs us that "ate" is pronounced "et." When you spoke back then, you "spake." When you thrived, you "throve." When you dared, you "durst." (It doesn't say whether kids ever triple-dog durst each other on the playground.)

We all know that interjections (ha! and oh!, for instance) are among the eight parts of speech. Frost lists some I've never used: pish! heigh! tush! fie! and soho!

He never mentions the question mark; instead, he calls it the "note of interrogation." Likewise, the exclamation mark is the "note of admiration."

What we call a parenthesis, he calls a "crotchet" (CROTCH-it, meaning a small hook), but he defines parenthesis as the part of a sentence enclosed in those brackets (such as what you're reading now), which, when read aloud, should be said "quick, and in a low tone."

You know, I think I understand my great-great-great-grandparents a little better now.

MOORE WORDS: That interjection cited above, "soho," means "the cry made by huntsmen when they uncouple the dogs in hunting the hare," according to Webster's Online Dictionary.

It goes on to say that "tally-ho!" is the cry when a fox breaks cover; "so! or see!" means to call attention; and "ho!" means "hie after him." (In turn, "hie" means hasten, I learned.)

"Ho!"? It's short for "haloo!" The dictionary continues: "In the hunting-field 'So-ho' is doubtless a cry to encourage the dogs to follow up the quarry."

Maybe you've heard that a district in Manhattan called SoHo is named for its location "so(uth of) Ho(uston Street)." The Online Etymology Dictionary points out that SoHo also might have been coined to echo the name of a London neighborhood, Soho, "which was so called since at least 1632, originally 'So Ho,' a hunting cry (circa 1307) ... so called from earlier association of this area with hunting."

So! Ho! Now we know!

Reach Glynn Moore at (706) 823-3419 or glynn.moore@augustachronicle.com.