Re: [ADS-L] conductio n

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 9/29/06 11:32:57 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> "Conduction" in the sense of 'performance as/practice of a (musical)
> conductor' is unattested in the OED or other dictionaries I just
> checked.  Seems interesting to me (if only as an example of
> semi-productive morphology).
> 
> LH
> 

I did a quick Google search and found 778 responses, mostly respectable. My 
question was not intended to be snide--it just seems like a totally natural 
usage to me, one that I thought I had heard all my life. I was surprised not to 
find it specifically in NOAD, and I am even more surprised not to find it in 
OED. I assumed that this was just one of those totally transparent morphological 
extensions that NOAD did not specifically mention because it was so 
transparent (NOAD does not enter it as a separate sense at all, though NOAD uses it in 
a citation in the electrical sense).

If one didn't say "under the conduction of" what WOULD one say? The 
morphology seems inevitable.

So I guess it is "interesting" -- what else could it be? why hasn't it been 
noticed before? have any prescriptivists railed against it?

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