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"It was a toy Court that obtained there".
A sentence from a book I'm reading.
I've never before seen the intransitive form of the verb "obtain" used.
Is it rare? Or archaic?
Is this an exception, a word that means at the same time to "aquire" and to "hold"? (here in the meaning of hold/held))
A verb that seems to have an active as well as a static meaning? Or should it in the meaning of to hold also be seen as active?
Are there more like this one?
Last edited by BranShea; 12/27/07 04:37 PM.
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I'd never heard the word used that way. "Obtain" is an obscure word meaning to be generally recognized or established (M-W) but you wouldn't use "was" and maybe not "that"
dalehileman
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Right Dale, thanks. I should edit the 'was' away. (that's what you get when you read at late hours and make a note on the edge of dreams,  ) I looked again and there is no 'was' in that phrase at all. But the the question still obtains.
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Is it rare? Or archaic?
It's common in UK English, in certain types of writing. I've mainly run across it in the works of Anglo-American philosophers (e.g., Austin, Ryle, Anscombe, Searle). I wouldn't call it rare, just specialized.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Thanks. Nice form. American writer.
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So the exact phrase is "It a toy Court that obtained there"? Wait a minute--that doesn't make any sense. "It was a toy that Court obtained there" makes sense, if Court is a person. However, if toy is an adjective describing Court (yeah, I know, I've never heard of a toy court either, but who knows what any particular author will come up with?), then I am forced to wonder what it obtained.
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" It was a toy Court that obtained there."
I was confused like you when I read that sentence so I looked up the word 'obtain '.
1) obtain. The American Heritage:
...1. To be established, accepted, or customary: standards, proprieties that no longer obtain (Meg Greenfield). 2. Archaic To succeed. Middle English obteinen, from...
Only knew it as:
1. Come into possession of; "How did you obtain the visa?".
" It was a toy Court that was established there " is how I now understand it.(and that suits the context)
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Possible new meaning: Any litigation arising from consumer product containing poisonous substance
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Possible new meaning: Any litigation arising from consumer product containing poisonous substance Now that's funny. 
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Anna thank you. As an old, rickety breakwind on the threshold of disintregration and one of the country's most resoundingly unpublished writers, I do once in a while appreciate a little encouragement
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"It was a toy Court that obtained there."
That is certainly one of the funniest-sounding and annoying sentences I've ever seen. And if it sounds funny, the hell with it.
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that obtained there or 'toy Court'? - joe (or just the juxtaposition) friday
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Thanks for the link that shows different settings for the word.
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tsu: Agreed; however, it might have been ok to say, "A Toy court obtained there"
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The sentence in its totality is stylistically repugnant.
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Could you explain why? This is an ancient Court where the people in charge are not aware of the fact that the power they think they have is only a puppet kind of power.
I liked this compact sentence once I understood the meaning of "obtain".
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Could you explain why? This is an ancient Court where the people in charge are not aware of the fact that the power they think they have is only a puppet kind of power.
I liked this compact sentence once I understood the meaning of "obtain". *shrug* -- à chacun son goût
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I still don't understand it.
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It was a toy (adjective) Court that obtained there.
This Court did not know how completey it was manipulated by rulers stronger than them, who were shrewed enough to give them the feeling they were acting by their own ideas and authority.
(?)
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getting there, thanks.
I just think "toy" is a strange adjective in this case.
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Er--the higher powers were playing with them?
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We use "toy" as an adjective for many things: little toy house (speelgoedhuisje), little toy soldiers, little toy cars, toy pistol (speelgoedpistool) etc. So a toy Court did not strike me as odd, the way it was used. Maybe this proves that any foreign language or culture you try to "learn" , if not from earliest childhood on, will for a part stay closed to you forever. I regularly meet the limits here.
>>Er--the higher powers were playing with them?
If you call the game of power a game.
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I don't think that the toy in toy court is an adjective, because it doesn't really behave like one. (It quacks like a noun.) For example, you can't really say that one court is toyer than another or that another is a very toy court. I think that what we have here is a good old nominal compound, like fire truck or baseball. But I will defend your right to call it an adjective if you want to.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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You are right, it does not behave like an adjective. It is no adjective. Nominal compound sounds good to me and your examples make it very clear.Thanks.
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I'd say the boundary between nouns and adjectives can be pretty fuzzy sometimes. In this case it's kind of a toy adjective.
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the boundary between nouns and adjectives can be pretty fuzzy sometimes
Yes, me, too, but I think that in this case toy is pretty much a noun. For an even fuzzier example, and one which sends grammatohooligans into conniption fits, try discerning when, how, and why an adverb differs from a verbal particle or a preposition.
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isn't it defining the court? telling us that it is a certain type of court? a "blue" court? a "hung" jury? a "toy" court?
I'm a "simple" guy, when it comes to this stuff, so call it what you will.
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isn't it defining the court? telling us that it is a certain type of court? a "blue" court? a "hung" jury? a "toy" court?
I'm a "simple" guy, when it comes to this stuff, so call it what you will. Why, etaoin, did you put "simple" in quotation marks and which noun simple did you mean? (1) noun: any herbaceous plant having medicinal properties (2) noun: a person lacking intelligence or common sense 
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isn't it defining the court? telling us that it is a certain type of court? a "blue" court? a "hung" jury? a "toy" court?
Yes, toy is modifying (or qualifying if you will) court, but I don't see as that makes it an adjective.
1a. the blue court
1b. the very blue court
1c. the court is blue
1d. the court which is blue
1e. the bluer/bluest court
2a. the toy court
2b. *the very toy court (at least not in the sense of the court that was very toy)
2c. *the court is toy
2d. *the court which is toy
2e. *the toyer/toyest court
No matter what you want to call them, they (blue and toy) seem to be two different kinds of words. I tend to categorize words by what slots they can fill in a sentence's structure. So, because toy is modifying court doesn't mean, to me, that it is an adjective, but that it is a noun modifying another noun. We have plenty of compounds made up of two or more nouns. Would you say that in the phrase ancient history teacher that ancient history is an adjective? (Leaving aside the old joke of whether it's a history teacher who is ancient or a teacher of ancient history, but not a history teacher of ancient or a teacher who is ancient history.) Calling toy in this case an adjective complicates things syntactically because then you have to have two (or more) classes of adjective: some that act like normal adjectives (see examples 1 above) and others which act differently (i.e., like nouns but aren't, see 2 above).
[Edited by addition for more clarity.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 01/12/08 03:20 AM.
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you mean a noun can't act as an adjective?
and milo, just go sing the blues, arright?
;¬ )
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you mean a noun can't act as an adjective?
I've got no problem with nouns acting like verbs etc., but (I was just trying to point out that) in this case, toy is acting poorly.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I've got no problem with nouns acting like verbs
To get the complete lesson: What is a noun acting like a verb?
Wood? like : a wooden frame? Or stone? A stone wall?
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nouns acting like verbs:
(old, accepted) I'll phone you tomorrow.
(new, derided) I'm going to office in the new quarters.
-joe (verbing weirds language) friday
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Yes , the second one is clearly unclear.
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in this case, toy is acting poorly. agreed! as for the rest of it, my head hurts from it being gone over. 
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...So, because toy is modifying court doesn't mean, to me, that it is an adjective, but that it is a noun modifying another noun. We have plenty of compounds made up of two or more nouns. Would you say that in the phrase ancient history teacher that ancient history is an adjective? (Leaving aside the old joke of whether it's a history teacher who is ancient or a teacher of ancient history, but not a history teacher of ancient or a teacher who is ancient history.) Calling toy in this case complicates things syntactically because then you have to have two (or more) classes of adjective: some that act like normal adjectives. Yes. From the book INVENTING LANGUAGE - Seth Lerer Chapter One: Caedmon Learns to Sing the Blues[ Now we should praise heaven-kingdom Guardian, the Creater's might, and his mind-thought, the words of the Glory-father: how he, each of his wonders, the eternal Lord, established at the begining. He first shaped for earth's Children heaven as a roof, the holy Creator. Then a middle-yard, mankind's Guardian, the eternal Lord, established afterwards, the earth for the people, the Lord almighty.] ________________ xxxxx ____________________ This poem is the earliest recorded poem in the English Language. It survives in Old English as a marginal notation in the book HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND PEOPLE written in Latin by an English monk and historian named Bede. The poem predates Bede's book which was written in the first third of the eighth century. Caedmon's hymn nouned nouns and compounded nouns back then. It is time for those with simple ears to get used to it.
Last edited by themilum; 01/12/08 12:19 AM.
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Interesting how Caedmon composed that hymn. He was drinking with a bunch of his buddies and they were passing the harp around, composing on the fly. When the harp came to him he passed, saying that he never could versify. He left and went out into the alley to drink alone when an angel came to him and said, "Sure, you can do it. Just give it a try." So he went back in, grabbed the harp and came up with this: Nu sculon herigean heofonrices weard,
meotodes meahte and his modgeþanc,
weorc wuldorfæder, swa he wundra gehwæs,
ece drihten, or onstealde.
He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum
heofon to hrofe, halig scyppend;
þa middangeard moncynnes weard,
ece drihten, æfter teode
firum foldan, frea ælmihtig.
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The neat thing about Cædmon's poem is (like most Old English verse) it doesn't rhyme, nor does it scan in the stressed syllable sense of the word in later English verse. The lines are of various lengths. (A limerick, it ain't.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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(old, accepted) I'll phone you tomorrow.
(new, derided) I'm going to office in the new quarters.
Yes, (Nuncle's Lemma) anything that predates the grammar schooling of the ranting grammarian is A-OK, anything after secondary school is an abomination.
Tomorrow, like home or the cardinal compass points, is an interesting case.
1. I went home.
2. I went to John's home.
3. *I went John's home.
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INVENTING LANGUAGE - Seth Lerer
Interesting that you should mention this book, Milo. I was given it recently as a gift by a word-person, and it was the first such popular language book which I had started reading that hooked me from the in-coming paragraph. So far, so good.
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INVENTING LANGUAGE - Seth Lerer
Interesting that you should mention this book, Milo. I was given it recently as a gift by a word-person, and it was the first such popular language book which I had started reading that hooked me from the in-coming paragraph. So far, so good. So far, so good, me too, zmjezhd. This book contains many ideas worth discussion. I just started reading "Inventing Language" today, and I'm a unprincipled reader who skips to chapters which might assuage his unprincipled whims. So far I've skipped over Chauncer and a couple of other chapters about phonetics. I am currently enjoying chapter fourteen, "Antses in the Sugar". So far, so good, but I'll bet that our astute goodbuddy Faldage read "Inventing Language" from cover to cover without intermission but with a scowl.
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You lose, Milo. It sure sounds interesting, though and if you and Nuncle both advise it I'll be sure to read it ASAP. Our local library is in the process of getting it on the shelf right now.
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