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Joined: Aug 2005
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
"grow"Two interesting uses of the verb to grow: (1) intransitive of non-vegetable things: "While now we talk as once we talk'd / Of men and minds, the dust of change, / The days that grow to something strange, / In walking as of old we walk'd." Tennyson In Memoriam A H H lxxi.11 ( link); (2) transitive of non-living things "Whan dauid had regned vii. yere in Ebron he grewe [French creut] and amended moche this cyte [Jerusalem]" Caxton Godfrey clxix.250.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Oct 2005
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addict
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addict
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... businessman ... tulip grower ... Both call for setting up optimum conditions, and that's as far as it can go. I'm wondering how to get into this sort of business that runs itself. Also, where can I buy these tulip bulbs that are self-fertilizing, self-watering, self-separating/replanting, and defend themselves from squirrels? Are they next to the self-pruning roses? ;-)
Last edited by Myridon; 04/24/08 05:53 PM.
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Joined: Nov 2007
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 390 |
"grow"
(2) transitive of non-living things "Whan dauid had regned vii. yere in Ebron he grewe [French creut] and amended moche this cyte [Jerusalem]" Caxton Godfrey clxix.250. This was the citation I found in the OED dated 1481 that I mentioned earlier, but they didn't have the other one.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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The tulip business, where a lot of effort is put into also, is threatened lately by the building maffs, who want the tulip raising business to move away so they can take the land behind the dunes for building luxury housing, stealing the last open parts in the already overpopulated West of the country.
Ground that has the only type of soil tulips thrive on.
So you're not going to grow tulips unless you grow your tulip business.
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
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And, Pookie--I don't care 'bout no grammar, here: it is WRONG to say grow a business! So quit baggin' me! [crossthreading e]  Yes but I still don't understand what the answer is to my earlier question. Do you think the concept is wrong - namely that you CAN'T grow a business, or just that using the word 'grow' to describe what you are doing when you make a business get larger is wrong? And if the latter, what term would you use? 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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Ok, ok. The latter. Somebody can make a business grow, or develop it, or increase it; but not grow it! (zmjezhd, the stamping foot indicates my childishness and irrationalness and stubbornness in insisting that things I don't like aren't so; for ex. that orientate is not a real word. This is usually reserved for things that don't really matter; but do NOT let me hear anybody say Antartica!  )
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
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insisting that things I don't like aren't so; for ex. that orientate is not a real word. My dictionary says that it is a transitive verb with the same meaning as the verb to orient. But I wasn't quite clear whether you were insisting that it IS a real word or insisting that it ain't no such thing?
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Joined: Nov 2007
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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[quote=Jackie insisting that it ain't no such thing? I think that's what she's saying.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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yes, that's what she's saying. and it's been said often in these fora. here's one thread in which her opinion is only alluded to, but I think etaoin summed up the general feeling rather nicely. it's at the bottom.
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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old hand
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Interesting word. Can be used in different ways, some of which sound more "right" than others. I agree that to say "I am orientated towards..." sounds 'clunky' as etaoin puts it. But the past participle "orientated" doesn't sound as bad for some reason, especially with the prefix dis- added. Disorientated sounds better than disoriented to me. But the present participle sounds better (to me) as disorienting. And if you can't have orientate, how would you form the adjective or noun from it? What would you call an Orientation Day for new students at a College or University? An Orience Day? Doesn't have the same ring to it.
Interesting to consider the etymology of the word. I presume it comes from aligning everything with the rising sun.
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