Oh, Lord!

[James C Stalker]

But can bridges lord over boroughs?

Jim

Benjamin Zimmer writes:

> 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
>



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University