Wednesday, 19 November 2008
10:06 PM
I was looking up a word (not this one) on Dictionary.com the other day that happened to be a verb. This might not be new, but it's the first time I noticed it:
Dictionary.com aggregates entries from multiple dictionaries, and further down the page is the entry from American Heritage, which looks slightly different:
People who spend their days wallowing around in grammar will refer to a verb "used without object" as intransitive (in dictionaries, generally v. intr. or even just vi), and to a verb "used with object" as transitive (v. tr. or vt)).[1]
Not surprisingly, I'm well used to the terms transitive and intransitive and I was (as noted) interested to see that their use had been dispensed with in this context. That isn't unreasonable; the terms are technical and therefore probably not something that casual dictionary users are apt to know.
But in a similar vein, how many such casual users know what an object is in reference to a verb? It's an interesting question that a lexicographer would have to put some thought into -- how much technical vocabulary can you get away with? For that matter, who exactly is your audience?
[categories]
language
[tags]
dictionary, verbs
|
link
|