"to bilk" with object not a person

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Bilked the restaurant/hotel/lodgings . . . What is the difference?
------Original Message------
From: Joel S. Berson
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] "to bilk" with object not a person
Sent: Sep 30, 2010 7:33 PM

At 9/30/2010 06:05 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>That doesn't matter.  One set of grammatical objects is human, the other
>ain't.

But the next person who divides all the world into two classes says:

One set is animate (human plus non-human), the other is inanimate.

"Bailey bilked Remy of her food again yesterday."  (A friend boards
and lodges these two cats, one of which likes to eat not only his own
food but what's in the other cat's dish.  She has taken to putting
Bailey food into Remy's dish -- but Bailey just keeps on snarfing
from both.)  This, I imagine, fits the sense of "bilk" where
"landlord" can be an object.

"Bilk the lodgings" fits the second class.

Joel

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