“True patriot love in all thy sons command.” By all means, let’s change the words to “in all of us,” but maybe we could fix the grammar in the process. No-one seems concerned but, dammit, the line, even now, should read “commands.” It is patriot love that is commanded, not the sons who command or the sons’ command. It may not sound quite so mellifluous to say, “in all thy sons commands,” but changed to “in all of us commands,” it sounds even better than the present syntactically-challenged doggerel.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I forget what the grammatical term is but this line is meant as a command, and thus is correct as is. Grammar teacher
ReplyDeleteThe grammatical term is "the imperative mood": the line means, command true patriot love in all thy sons -- or, in all of us. Either way, it is grammatical.
ReplyDelete