do, v.i.

[Victor Steinbok]

On 1/17/2011 10:17 AM, Ronald Butters wrote:
> Do unto others before they do unto you.
> ...

I thought this template only applied to teabagging, as in "Teabag Obama
before he teabags you!"--which is the original phrase behind the
reference to Teabaggers as Teabaggers.

Seriously, however, there is also the variant

"Do unto others as they would do unto you."

If this were a straight " Do unto others _what_ they would do unto you,"
this would be a case of transitive "do", would it not? So should we
treat the entire complement "as they would do unto to you" as an object?
[I suppose, that's a rhetorical question]


Similarly, with Larry Horn's example:

On 1/17/2011 1:09 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> In particular, examples of the auxiliary verb (U.K. "I didn't go but
> I might have done", corresponding to U.S. "...but I might have
> (gone)") don't count.  Nor does "That'll do", "It will do", which is
> again a different "do" = 'suffice'.

In the last two examples, isn't this not simply the case of "do" not
just being "suffice", but also being transitive (with a zero-anaphoric
object [it])?

Then there is the more confusing [or is it _less_ confusing?]

"What is it that you do do?"

The first one is just an auxiliary, but is the second transitive?

     VS-)

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