Allow meaning 'provide the ability to'

[Joanne M. Despres]

Geoff,

The sense you were looking for was there -- just a bit obscured by
our cross-referencing conventions, I'm afraid.  Sense 5a in the
Collegiate, "PERMIT," is a synonymous cross-reference (indicated
by the small-caps type font); what it tells you is that all the senses
at "permit" apply. If you turn to that entry, you will see that the
sense you used is covered under sense 3 "to make possible."

Hope this helps.  Tell your prescriptivist interlocutor that s/he is
correct, and so are you.

Joanne

On 31 Aug 2006, at 19:04, Geoff Nathan wrote:

> I'm having a small debate with a local prescriptivist over something I'm
> writing to advertise an upcoming conference on e-Portfolios.  I had written:
>
> > E-Portfolios are a relatively new electronic tool allowing students to
> > >assemble an online summary of their academic careers (papers, films,
> > >performances, poems, foreign language abilities).
> and was told 'allow' means 'permit'.  My usage struck me as totally
> unremarkable, so I went to the OED, Dictionary.com and MerriamWebster
> Online, and found, to my astonishment, that none agreed with me,
> providing no senses like the one I used here.  Am I missing something?
> Have I run across a new shibboleth?  Or new to me?
> I can easily construct a plausible story for the semantics of the
> extension, but I'm surprised it hasn't made it to dictionaries.  Or is
> this slightly metaphorical use so common as not to need explication?
>
> --
> Geoffrey S. Nathan
> Department of English/Computing and Information Technology
> Wayne State University
> Detroit, MI, 48202
> <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
> Phones:  C&IT (313) 577-1259/English (313) 577-8621
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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