ire: n,v,a,adv,?

[Jonathan Lighter]

I second that.  A nearly immutable rule of headline writing is never to use an unnecessary letter, space, or symbol. "Italy ire" for "Italian ire" seems perfectly normal tabloidese to me.

  JL

Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Michael H Covarrubias
Subject: ire: n,v,a,adv,?
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Forgive the possible repetition.

I remember some discussion of "ire" as a transitive verb. The use is supported
by the OED though it's called obsolete and rare. And one quotation is all it earns.

c1420 Pallad. on Husb. II. 361 Her brethron & her owne kynde hit ireth [L. irritat].

A recent AP headline reads

"Italy ire over kids seeing 'Apocalypto'"

What use of 'ire' is this? If it is a noun (as in "there is ire in Italy") I
would expect the modifyer to be "Italian". I would expect a coined participle
to be "ired". I can't (in good conscience) parse any non-transitive verb sense.

I raise my hand feebly to vote for the noun-sense (nonsense?).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

English Language & Linguistics
Purdue University
mcovarru at purdue.edu

web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru


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