Engineering amazing

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/18/2011 08:57 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Just saw the commercial (one of several) in its entirety.
>
>"Amazing" is a noun.
>
>"When you pursue industry-leading safety, you don't just engineer
>breakthroughs and simulation technology. You engineer amazing."

You mean it's not a gerund?  And can someone explain to me the part
of the OED's definition of "gerund" that I have emphasized?

"A form of the Latin vb. capable of being construed as a n., but
retaining the regimen of the vb. Hence applied to forms functionally
equivalent in other langs., e.g. to the English verbal noun in -ing
*when used rather as a part of the vb. than as a n.*"

An explanation of the Latin verbal "regimen" is not
required.  Although I might be enlightened by an explanation of the
following quotation:

"1762    R. Lowth Introd. Eng. Gram. 111   The Participle with a
Preposition before it, and still retaining its *Government,* answers
to what is called in Latin the Gerund."

Otherwise, I'll be left in the position of the person of 1826:

"S. Smith Wks. (1859) II. 100/1   He is driven to absolute despair by gerunds."

Unless we go back to 1668:

"Bp. J. Wilkins Ess. Real Char. 446   Gerunds and Supines are
unnecessary inflexions of Verbs, the notion of them being expressible
by the Infinitive Mode, whose Cases they are."

Joel


>JL
>
>On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 2:44 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Engineering amazing
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Ram Tough==Tough As [a] Ram~~Tough Like [a] Ram (with Ram==Dodge).
> > Actually,
> > interpreting "engineering" as a gerund, would add one more variant
> > interpretation to "engineering amazing"--amazing engineering. But, I
> > suspect
> > that most people would see a verb there (participle).
> >
> > VS-)
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com
> > >wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I'm not sure whether to top-post or bottom-post now, but I don't see the
> > > connection between "engineering amazing" (vt + adj) and "Ram tough" (noun
> > +
> > > adj).
> > >
> > > Benjamin Barrett
> > > Seattle, WA
> > >
> > > On Sep 15, 2011, at 1:39 PM, Ronald Butters wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Surely there are constructions galore of the form Noun + {Adjectivey
> > > thing}, particularly in advertising? "POM wonderful"? "the coffee
> > > delicious"? "Ram Tough"?
> > >
> >
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> >
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>
>
>--
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>
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