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I stumbled across the verb "arrive" used in a transitive sense the other day. I was going in for my flu shot and at the front desk the receptionist, having to pass me on to another receptionist on another matter, said "You can have him after I've arrived him."
I was mulling this over this morning and even I could think of another way to say it that didn't involve using a verb that, up until now and to the best of my knowledge, had been only intransitive. What I got wondering, and this is really my only question although I'm sure some will run amok decrying the usage, is whether having another way of saying something is a valid criticism of any usage. I maintain that there's always another way to say it.
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Pooh-Bah
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Your question reflects a very common trend to use a given word in another part of speech, eg, CRASH: n: when there is a security ~ vb: ~ the White House [fr West Wing] adj: in the ~ mode
That doesn't answer your q; but I suppose by the purists the practice is still considered vulgar
PS: Can anyone suggest a way to use ~ as an adverb
dalehileman
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Quote:
Your question reflects a very common trend to use a given word in another part of speech, eg, CRASH: n: when there is a security ~ vb: ~ the White House [fr West Wing] adj: in the ~ mode
That doesn't answer your q; but I suppose by the purists the practice is still considered vulgar
PS: Can anyone suggest a way to use ~ as an adverb
"Arrive" hasn't changed part of speech here, just had an added transitive sense. The other way of saying it that occurred to me was "check in" which can be used transitively or intransitively.
"Crash", btw, has been used as a noun since at least the 16th century. Nouns and adjectives have slopped over each other since before the beginning. Even classical Latin did it.
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Carpal Tunnel
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There is not a good equivalent for the misuse of arrive in this sentence: "You can have him after I've arrived him." This is because the actor is not the receptionist but the Faldage. Only Faldage arrives; receptionists do other things. They might record him, check him in, tick him off the list, welcome him, acknowledge him, enter him or any of a dozen other things ... but none of them have anything arriving about them, as the receptionist already arrived earlier in the story.
P.S. Is this response within the category of "run[ning] amok decrying the usage"? One hopes not.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Nouns and adjectives have slopped over each other since before the beginning. Even classical Latin did it.
Yes, indeed. That's why Latin grammarians called both nouns and adjectives nomina 'names'. As far as they, and the Greek grammarians whom they aped were concerned, nouns and adjectives were the same kinds of words. They did subdivide the grammatical category into nomina substantiva and nomina adjectiva. (Ever notice how entries for nouns and adjectives in the OED are categorized by sb. and a.?)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
. . . "You can have him after I've arrived him."
I was mulling this over this morning and even I could think of another way to say it that didn't involve using a verb that, up until now and to the best of my knowledge, had been only intransitive. What I got wondering, and this is really my only question although I'm sure some will run amok decrying the usage, is whether having another way of saying something is a valid criticism of any usage. I maintain that there's always another way to say it.
Come again?
I'm sorry, Fong, but that is an abomination. Users should be punished by summary, public, removal of the tongue, without anesthesia, as an example to others who would even think about using this grotesquery.
And yes, there are always other ways to say almost any particular something, but many of them are just plain wrong. This one's a case in point.
TEd, proud to be a prescriptivist, proud to be a defender of good English, proud to stand against the tide of evil that is eroding our beautiful language, even if that stand be fruitless. And proud to have Father Steve close at hand.
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Users should be punished by summary, public, removal of the tongue, without anesthesia, as an example to others who would even think about using this grotesquery.Language Log wrote a nice entry about the violence of English prescriptivists.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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... that is an abomination. Users should be punished by summary, public, removal of the tongue, without anesthesia, as an example to others who would even think about using this grotesquery.
Now THAT is as fine an example of "run[ning] amok decrying the usage" as I have ever seen.
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Sponsored by: The perfect grammar tool Grammar, Thesaurus and Spelling Works on all the sentence whitesmoke.com 
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Quote:
There is not a good equivalent for the misuse of arrive in this sentence: "You can have him after I've arrived him." This is because the actor is not the receptionist but the Faldage. Only Faldage arrives; receptionists do other things. They might record him, check him in, tick him off the list, welcome him, acknowledge him, enter him or any of a dozen other things ... but none of them have anything arriving about them, as the receptionist already arrived earlier in the story.
P.S. Is this response within the category of "run[ning] amok decrying the usage"? One hopes not.
Do you not understand how verbs that can be both transitive and intransitive work? This is just the same thing as saying, e.g.:
A) I burned the pile of wood.
2) The pile of wood burned.
Incidentally, your list of things that she might have done pretty much sums up what she did. She said it all in one word. Sounds like a pretty evil abuse of language to me.
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