it doesn't behoove you

[Lynne Murphy]

It may be that I've just got(ten) too used to British understatement to see
it as confusion...  I'd see it as an intentional understatement.

I do use the word 'behoove'--not every day, but often enough--but always in
the 'advantageous/suitable' sense.  I wasn't aware of the 'required' sense
that others seem to take as the more immediate sense--so maybe something
going on here (generational? regional?).  It certainly makes Swedish 'att
behöva' (to need) make even more sense to me.

Lynne

--On Friday, September 3, 2010 12:19 -0400 Dan Goncharoff
<thegonch at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Just a thought -- isn't the use of "behoove" part of a more general
> confusion between the concepts of "not required to ..." and "required
> not to ..."?
>
> Even sticking with a definition of "advantageous", saying something is
> not advantageous doesn't mean it makes you worse off. If you say it is
> advantageous not to do something, then you are better off not doing
> it.
>
> DanG
>
> On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> ----------------------- Sender:       American Dialect Society
>> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Poster:       Laurence Horn
>> <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: it doesn't behoove you
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------
>>
>> At 12:11 PM +0100 9/3/10, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>>> I don't really see why the Ciudad Juarez example is remarkable.  Seems
>>> like an application of the sense 'be advantageous'.  It would not be an
>>> advantage to you to go to CJ. And an easily accessible implicature from
>>> that statement is: 'it would be a disadvantage to you to go'.
>>>
>>> Lynne
>>
>> Right, but I agree that it's a bit odd given the environments in
>> which "neg-raising", i.e. the association of a higher (main clause)
>> negation with a lower (embedded clause) meaning, tends to occur.*
>> The classic instances of this phenomenon involve verbs like "want" or
>> "think/believe" (or both, as in "I don't think she wants to leave"
>> meaning "I think she wants to stay").  But we do get these readings
>> with modals of weak obligation like "ought to", "should", "better",
>> or "supposed to", so "you're not supposed to go" will usually be
>> interpreted as "you're supposed to stay".  The thing is that
>> "behoove" might be expected to pattern with stronger obligation verbs
>> like "have to", which doesn't license such interpretations (in
>> English), so "you don't have to go" isn't read with the meaning "you
>> have to stay", nor is "it's not necessary/obligatory for you to go"
>> read as "it's necessary/obligatory for you not to go".  (Compare
>> French, where "il ne faut pas que tu ailles" does mean "il faut que
>> tu n'ailles pas".)  What's remarkable here, if anything is, is that
>> "behoove" is used in the CJ example as a "neg-raiser", even though
>> its meaning is more like "be obligatory/required to" or (an
>> impersonal version of) "have to".  So you'd think that all "it
>> doesn't behoove you to" should mean is that you're under no
>> behooving-type obligation, as with "it's not incumbent on you to go".
>> Instead it's more like "it doesn't suit you to..." or other verbs
>> whose meaning is a bit weaker than than of "behoove".  On the other
>> hand, the fact that (as noted upthread) we don't really use "behoove"
>> a hell of a lot (compared with our Dutch cousins, who are quite fond
>> of their "hoeven"), and even less when it's negated (compared with,
>> say, "have to" or "be supposed to"), may have resulted in the meaning
>> of "it doesn't behoove" being up for grabs.
>>
>> LH
>>
>> *Whether this association is an instance of "easily accessible
>> implicature(s)", semantics, or grammar has long been up for grabs,
>> but it's clear that the verb matters, so there's a difference
>> between, say, "I didn't think the Red Sox would collapse" (= I
>> thought they wouldn't) and "I didn't claim the Red Sox would
>> collapse" (=/= I claimed they wouldn't).  Or "I don't want to see
>> you" vs. "I don't hope to see you".  And (ObADS) there's the role of
>> dialect as well; compare "I don't guess the Rays will finish ahead of
>> the Yankees" (= 'I guess they won't') as uttered in Alabama vs. New
>> Jersey.
>>
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>>



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
Director of English Language and Linguistics
School of English
Arts B348
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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