ire: n,v,a,adv,?

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:42 PM -0800 1/4/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>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

Not to mention the apprehension that "Italian ire" might be read as a
typo for "Italian ice", raising the question of just which flavor...

--LH, pretty sure it is a noun in that headline, but otherwise uncertain

>
>Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Michael H Covarrubias
>Subject: ire: n,v,a,adv,?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>  __________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org