[Ads-l] Fwd: Re: [ADS-L] Intransitive "publish"

[Neal Whitman]

This seems to have been sent only to Mark, so I'm re-sending it.

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [ADS-L] Intransitive "publish"
Date: 	Wed, 10 Oct 2018 20:11:56 -0400
From: 	Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net>
To: 	Mark Mandel <mark.a.mandel at GMAIL.COM>



Usually but not always. One source I’m reading right now is a 2016(?) monograph by Marianne Hundt, which makes a case for including these examples. Often you just need the right context; for example, “the bread looked tough, but when I slid in the knife, it sliced easily.”

Neal

> On Oct 10, 2018, at 7:49 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> But doesn’t middle voice tend to involve dispositions/capacities rather than episodic or eventive clauses?  Compare standard middle examples from the literature like
> 
> Poetry doesn’t translate easily.
> This bread will cut with a sharp knife.
> Those cars are selling like hotcakes.
> Bean curd digests easily.
> The soup that eats like a meal.
> ‘Mr. Howard amuses easy' (as in the eponymous paper representing earliest treatment of the construction I know of, by Anna Granville Hatcher (Modern Language Notes, 1943—a paper that also uses asterisks for ungrammatical sentences!)
> 
> Typically, there’s an adverb relating to *manner* (not time) and a general, non-episodic, interpretation (cf. #Mr. Howard amused last night).  In the case of “This book published last night”, we have an episodic interpretation involving a one-time event.  So I’m not sure I see it as a garden-variety middle.
> 
> LH
> 
>> 
>> https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/middle-voice-sentences
>> 
>> Neal
>> 
>>> On Oct 10, 2018, at 3:54 PM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I don't think any of these examples matches the one I cited, though maybe
>>> the 1972 entry comes close.
>>> 
>>> I read the " The newspapers do not publish on Good
>>> Friday" example more like "The network does not broadcast after midnight."
>>> 
>>> And "This just published" is like "This just in."
>>> 
>>> I don't see "the book published last month" in quite that way. Maybe it's
>>> middle voice, like "the book reads well"?
>>> 
>>> --Marc
>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 3:00 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
>>>> Subject:      Re: Intransitive "publish"
>>>> 
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> 
>>>> Intransitive "publish" is pretty common these days. OED3 breaks it down
>>>> into two senses: 3c (of an author, as in "publish or perish") and 3d (of a
>>>> work -- as Vox uses it). Examples for the latter sense date back to 1849:
>>>> 
>>>> 1849   Times 13 Aug. 10/2 (advt.)    Amusement while travelling--Publishing
>>>> monthly, one shilling each, the Railway Library.
>>>> 1918   C. S. Lewis Let. 27 Oct. (1966) 45   He [sc. Heinemann] told me that
>>>> John Galsworthy (who publishes with them) had seen my MS.
>>>> 1928   Public Opinion 6 Apr. 325/1   The newspapers do not publish on Good
>>>> Friday.
>>>> 1972   Evening Telegram (St. John's, Newfoundland) 24 June 1/1   The
>>>> Evening Telegram will publish Monday, June 26 which is being observed as
>>>> Discovery Day in Newfoundland.
>>>> 
>>>> I'd say the intransitive usage has been further popularized in the age of
>>>> online publishing. Among journalists you typically hear things like "this
>>>> just published" (i.e., just appeared online via publishing software), or if
>>>> you're in a hurry, "this just pubbed."
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 2:49 PM Marc Sacks <msacksg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I just encountered this in a "Vox" article:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Enterprising Southern women have been trading on this platonic ideal of a
>>>>> lifestyle forever. The latest is Reese Witherspoon, whose book *Whiskey
>>>> in
>>>>> a Teacup*
>>>>> <
>>>>> 
>>>> https://go.redirectingat.com?id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWhiskey-Teacup-Reese-Witherspoon%2Fdp%2F1471166228
>>>>>> 
>>>>> published last month.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Shouldn't that be "was published," or is it perhaps self-published? Has
>>>> any
>>>>> of you encountered the transitive "publish" elsewhere? It's new to me.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>> 
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