Oh, Lord!

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 25 May 2005 15:08:25 -0400, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Today's NYT, p.A24: "... the Manhattan Bridge ... _lords over_ this
>Lower East Side neighborhood."
>
>Isn't/wasn't the idiom "_lord *it* over_"?
>
>Here's another one from Google (115,000 hits of various combinations,
>such as the "Lord Over Church"):
>
>"... Producer Jerry Bruckheimer all set to _lord over_ American
>television this year."


OED has some historical examples of "lord over" without indefinite "it".
The passive "BE lorded over (by)" seems perfectly acceptable to me, and
the active form doesn't bother me too much.

1671 -- Samson 265 They had by this..lorded over them whom now they serve.
1685 DRYDEN tr. Lucretius III. 242 That haughty King, who lorded ore the
Main,..Him Death, a greater Monarch, overcame.
1777 BURKE Address King Wks. 1842 II. 402 Much less are we desirous of
lording over our brethren.
1833 CHALMERS Const. Man (1835) I. iii. 156 Its unhappy patient is lorded
over by a power of moral evil.
1881 BLACKMORE Christowell xxxi, I am not one to be lorded over by a man
no better than myself.


--Ben Zimmer