"abscond with" 'steal'

[Benjamin Zimmer]

All of this reminds me a bit of the semantic shift in "accost" from
'approach and address (someone) boldly or aggressively' to 'threaten
(someone) with physical violence' to 'assault (someone)'. At least I
think that's how the shift has gone-- as with "abscond", OED has yet
to include the newer senses. (Can't wait till those "A" entries are
revised!)

--Ben Zimmer


On 8/14/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> On Aug 14, 2007, at 6:40 AM, Laurence Urdang wrote:
>
> > It is hard to understand the fuss.
> >   Abscond means 'to steal away; sneak off.'
>
> [this is a different use of "steal", of course.]
>
> >   If one takes something [with] him, he absconds with the loot,
> > money, etc.  The meaning of abscond has not changed.
>
> yes; this is still use #1.  i characterized it in my posting as: X
> absconded with Y" 'X fled, taking Y along'.  this can be used to
> *convey* that X stole Y, but it doesn't *mean* that; it merely means
> that X fled and that X took Y with him/her, and any understanding
> that X took Y from someone (or in fact, stole Y) is an implicature,
> derived from the fact that the two things are mentioned together ("X
> absconded with all of his books", where there's no theft, or any kind
> of taking from another, involved, is perfectly fine).
>
> in use #2, the implicature is elevated to semantic content (a very
> common type of semantic change).  the crucial consequence is that no
> fleeing need be involved.  so we get things like the following:
>
> Suits allege CMI Network 'absconded' with clients' money
>
> (St. Petersburg Times (FL) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Nov. 4--
> Just days before the start of a 300-person convention in the Bahamas
> this February, sponsor Honeywell got some bad news.
>
> Its event planner -- Palm Harbor-based CMI Network -- hadn't booked
> any hotel rooms. A red-faced Honeywell had to cancel the convention,
> as well as a subsequent one in Boca Raton. Worse, CMI wouldn't return
> its $760,000 deposit.
>
> Peter Berlowe, CMI's Miami lawyer, said company officials admit owing
> the money and want to repay it. He blamed the foul-up on two things:
> a nervous lender's sudden revocation of CMI's line of credit, and
> Honeywell's meddling in a payment plan between CMI and the Bahamas
> hotel.
> http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/11/06/2050439.htm
>
> .....
>
> CMI Network didn't leave town, steal away, flee, etc.  it took the
> momey (and wouldn't give it back), period.
>
> an even milder version of taking is involved in the next one:
>
> Tommy Conwell absconded with my camera.
> http://mobyrebuttal.blogspot.com/2004/12/tommy-conwell-absconded-with-
> my-camera.html
>
> if you read the blog, you'll see that Tommy Conwell merely *borrowed*
> the blogger's camera, to take her picture.
>
> there are other cites where a more clearly felonious taking is
> involved, but no furtive fleeting.
>
> (of course, use #1 continues to be available as well as use #2, and
> in some examples it's not clear which sense a writer/speaker
> intended.  again, this is commonplace in semantic change.)
>
> the crucial *syntactic* change in use #2 is that "with" is no longer
> really a preposition of concomitance, but functions as a marker of
> the (oblique) object of "abscond"; in use #2, "abscond with" is an
> idiomatic verb+preposition combination.  (english has tons of these.
> like "adhere to".)
>
> (undoubtedly, my discussion in the early posting was too compact for
> these points to be clear.  they were there, but in very abbreviated
> form.  i was in a hurry.)
>
> this development is what allows us to get to use #3.
>
> >   Def. 3 appears to be derived from the second sense as a not
> > uncommon result of creating a transitive verb out of an intransitive.
>
> indeed.  a very common development, often described as "preposition
> dropping".  but it depends on the intransitive being understood as in
> an idiomatic combination with a following preposition.  the
> preposition can be dropped because it's mostly window dressing; the
> primary semantic content is in the verb: in use #2, "abscond" means
> 'take', and "with" just marks the NP denoting the thing taken.
>
> you don't find more contentful uses of prepositions being deleted.
> there's no pressure to drop the "with" of concomitance ("I strolled
> with my best friend", "I play with a garage band"), the "with" of
> instrument ("I hacked with a sharp knife", "I also wash with Fab"), etc.
>
> >   Where or whether a usage is documented in a dictionary is
> > irrelevant.
>
> i should have been blunter.  beyond noting uses that i had somehow
> missed before yesterday, i was saying that dictionaries *should*
> document them.
>
> arnold
>
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