"If Washington agreed sanctions"

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 4, 2014, at 9:09 AM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:

> From Yahoo News:
>
> -----
> Moscow (AFP) - Russia could reduce to zero its economic dependency on
> the United States if Washington agreed sanctions against Moscow over
> Ukraine, a Kremlin aide said on Tuesday, warning that the American
> financial system faced a "crash" if this happened.
>
> "We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United
> States to zero but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits
> for ourselves," said Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev.
> -----
>
> Glazyey's translator must have learned his English in
> England.  Although scanning the OED I'm not sure that this
> construction is/was even used in England -- if it's there, it's hard to find.

it's actually quite common, but hard to search for.

i've posted about it several times, under the heading of "transitivizing P-drop".  it's specifically British, esp. used in newspapers.

arnold

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