[Ads-l] Facebookery: _to higher_ "to raise"

[Laurence Horn]

Once again, OED is on the case:

Higher, v.
 
1. trans. To make higher (in various senses); to raise, elevate. Opposed to and frequently in conjunction with LOWER v. 
More usually expressed by raise.

1592   in Acts Privy Council (1901) XXII. 553   Yt ys alledged that the bridge havinge ben highered duringe the mynorytie of Sir Edward Denney..was latelie taken downe.
1703   G. Garden tr. A. Bourignon Light risen in Darkness iii. i. 6   These Men understand not the Scriptures.., weighing me in their false Scales which have no just weights, but are higher'd or lower'd according to their own grandeur.
1794   D. Steel Elements & Pract. Rigging & Seamanship I. 55   The upper-plate has a dove-tail on the back, that slides up and down in a groove..and, by a staff, made fast to its front, it is highered or lowered.
1831   Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 29 980   Our high opinion..has not been lowered..It has—pardon the expression—been highered.
1861   H. Mayhew London Labour (new ed.) III. 150/1   I highered the rope in my yard.
1908   Rep. Select Comm. Home Work 130/2 in Parl. Papers (H.C. 246) VIII. 1   The employer sees what she has priced it at. If it does not suit him he lowers it or highers it.
2012   Birmingham Post (Nexis) 27 Sept. 21   Egress [is] made easier for the driver by the steering wheel being automatically highered when the engine is switched off and lowered again when it is started.

2. intr. To become higher, to rise; (also) to allow of being highered. Cf. earlier highering adj. 
rare.

1889   Birmingham Daily Post 30 Sept. 6/4   Quotations for forge and foundry bars are highering.
1905   Timber & Wood-working Machinery 18 Nov. 871/2   The table highers and lowers for various depths of mortise.

[Suggesting, perhaps, that the transitive version is NOT rare?]

LH

> On Jul 16, 2018, at 12:29 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> "we have the new train _to higher_ the crime rate"
> 
> Probably some kind of brain-fart and not real language-change.
> -- 
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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