Allow meaning 'provide the ability to'

[Wilson Gray]

Damn it! Horned, again! I was going to say that, Larry. OTOH, at
least, now I know that the fact that I find both "allow" and "permit"
okay isn't a peculiarity of BE.

-Wilson

On 8/31/06, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Allow meaning 'provide the ability to'
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 4:33 PM -0700 8/31/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary has it:
> >http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=2229&dict=CALD
> >
> >   but many others do not.  Your sentence sounds unremarkable to me,
> >though if it occurred to me to think about it I might have replaced
> >"allow" with "enable" simply because the latter is a little more
> >precise. Or something.
> >
> >   But I'm quite surprised that the dictionaries you mention overlook
> >this nuance.  I doubt that your colleague's objection is a
> >"shibboleth," which implies that a great many people have heard of
> >it and observe it.  Any objection on principle to your usage is news
> >to me.
> >
> >   JL
>
> Besides which, for me (and I suspect lots of others), "permit" is
> perfectly good in the same context as well as "allow", so the
> 'definitions' you cite don't really constrain the semantics.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >   Geoff Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU> wrote:
> >   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >-----------------------
> >Sender: American Dialect Society
> >Poster: Geoff Nathan
> >Subject: Allow meaning 'provide the ability to'
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >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
> >
> >Phones: C&IT (313) 577-1259/English (313) 577-8621
> >
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--
-Wilson
----
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

--Sam Clemens

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