star in

[Kate Daly]

I'd guess it's a copy editing error, and that the erring writer is a Method actor. My instructor in the Method (or The Method, depending on what guru you follow) insists that all actors always refer to their characters in the first person, no matter how casual the chat. If we're talking about the play, we're the characters - period. A Method student (especially an insufficiently caffeinated one) might well mistake the characters for the actors when writing a blurb about a television show.
-Kate

At 07:58 PM 10/31/2007, Damien Hall wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Damien Hall <halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>Subject:      star in
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Spotted in today's (31 October 2007) *Metro*, Philadelphia edition, as the
>caption  to the picture in the 'TV tonight' section (p20):
>
>'Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) and Mac (Gary Sinise) star in "CSI: NY."'
>
>For me, the subject arguments and their adjuncts are the wrong way around in
>this sentence.  In my dialect, I would have to say 'MK (Stella) and GS (Mac)
>star in ...', because it's the actors who are doing the starring, not the
>characters;  the sentence as quoted implies that it is the characters doing the
>starring.
>
>Neither *OED* nor *MW* lists this permutation of arguments for *star in*.  Does
>it strike others as unusual?  Has anyone heard it before, in which case it
>might be an incoming variant?
>
>Damien Hall
>University of Pennsylvania
>
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