accusative cursing

[Michael H Covarrubias]

Quoting Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>:
> ...But back to ACCUSATIVE CURSING:
>
> I don't understand why there's an "issue"
> here; most of the OED's historical
> examples of transitive "curse" have
> human (or anthropomorphic) objects (was
> Job supposed to "curse AT God and die"
> or "curse God OUT and die"??). I don't
> find anything odd about simply CURSING
> a person!

Remind me not to get on your bad side.

What caught my attention wasn't the stark syntax. The semantics were peeking
around the corner and that's what I noticed.

Clearly the form is common enough not to be conspicuous or interesting to most
readers. Sure--Job probably did curse. But as I read that, the character truly
does intend a curse. He isn't just saying "damn you" to his deity out of
anger--he is actually uttering a curse of _effective_ ill will (now that's
chutzpah).  The use of 'to (curse|cuss)' as a simple expression of anger or
frustration is common enough. I guess my ears are slow to catch on to its
transitive use.

I should have made it more clear in my original observation that since I hear
the meaning changing slightly I was just unsure of how common the usage is
without the semantic distinction (which I now see no one else hears).

Michael

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   English Language & Linguistics
   Purdue University
   mcovarru at purdue.edu

   web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
  <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>

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