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#147905 - 09/15/05 01:44 PM
Re: I done bad(ly)
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
TEd Remington
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Marion NC
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BelM:
Here are the definitions for the verb graduate (I have reordered them to put the transitive verbs at the top):
5. transitive verb sort things by differences: to sort things into groups according to quality, size, or type
2. transitive verb give a certificate: to give a diploma or degree to a student completing a course of study
4. transitive verb mark something with degrees or levels: to mark something with units of measurement
1. intransitive verb finish school or college: to receive a diploma or degree after completing a course of study in a school, college, or university
We both graduated from high school in 1996.
3. intransitive verb move up: to move upward from one level or activity to another
I've graduated from skiing to snowboarding.
The usage I find abominable is:
I graduated high school. Even worse is I graduated college because there's more education wasted there.
Insert the transitive definition of your choice and see why I feel the sentence is just plain wrong:
I sorted high school by some criterion.
I drew evenly spaced lines up the side of the high school.
I gave the high school a certificate or diploma.
But it is OK to say the high school graduated me, giving me a diploma.
You could say the high school graduated the students by GPAs.
And I guess in a pinch you could say the high school drew lines on the student, but I wonder why they'd do that.
And those people on the dark side can call me a prescriptivist all they darned want to. A person who doesn't use good grammar is, in my book, sloppy, uneducated, lazy, or a combination thereof. And this is particularly true of those people who are raising children. If you want them to go through life grammatically challenged, then let them say Can I have a cookie instead of May I have a cookie.
TEd [/rant]
TEd
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#147906 - 09/15/05 01:52 PM
Re: What I'd like to know is:
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
TEd Remington
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Marion NC
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Subpoena comes from the first two words of a legal writ which required a person to comply with some order of the court; it means "under penalty".
Under penalty, get your butt before me so I can try you, for example.
Writs were very long, often hundreds of words, and this is just a shorthand description of one of them.
Habeas corpus is another one.
And then there's subpoena duces tecum. That's a writ requiring the production of some item by the person upon whom the writ is served, usually a document, to the court. It means literally Under penalty, carry with you . . . and there followed more Latin along with a description of the items to be carried into court.
If you get a copy of Black's or a similar Law Dictionary and leaf through it you will find hundreds of these ancient writs, all described by the first two, three, perhaps four words of the original Latin in which they were written.
TEd
TEd
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-- hey, btw, whence sub-poena?!)
