[Ads-l] Intransitive "publish"

Fri Oct 12 08:36:59 UTC 2018

"It could be several minutes, as _macOS matches_ against every one of
hundreds of thousands or millions of individual files."

https://goo.gl/qC2VUH
On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 4:54 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Files download, software installs, articles publish. Digital artifacts seem
> to have taken over grammatical agency these days.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 3:37 PM Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net> wrote:
>
> > This, too, 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 20:17:23 -0400
> > From:   Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net>
> > To:     Mark Mandel <mark.a.mandel at GMAIL.COM>
> >
> >
> >
> > Here’s the book:
> >
> > Hundt, Marianne. English Mediopassive Constructions : A Cognitive,
> > Corpus-Based Study of their Origin, Spread, and Current Status. 58 Vol.
> > Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Print.
> >
> > Also, from the conclusion of the GG piece, several other episodic
> > examples found in the wild, all within the space of one day:
> >
> > Once you start thinking about the middle voice in English, you’ll start
> > to notice it everywhere. In fact, and this is a true story, in a single
> > day while I was writing this script, I noticed two of them in a magazine
> > article about the airline industry. One sentence said that deregulation
> > “made it easier for new carriers to launch,” with the patient “new
> > carriers” as its subject. The other said that the galleys were the
> > places “where we enter and exit the plane, [and] where the drink carts
> > stow.” The drink carts don’t stow themselves; the flight attendants stow
> > them. Mere hours later, an air-conditioner technician told me as he
> > wrote up the paperwork for a service call, “The bill will be sending
> > this week.” A couple more hours later, I downloaded some updated
> > software for a handheld device, and a message on my screen said, “Your
> > file is downloading.” The instructions I was following said that once I
> > selected the downloaded file, “Your software will install automatically.”
> >
> > Neal
> >
> > On Oct 10, 2018, at 7:49 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> > <mailto: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
> > >>> <mailto: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
> > >>>> <mailto:bgzimmer at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > >>>> -----------------------
> > >>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > >>>> <mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>>
> > >>>> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
> > >>>> <mailto: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
> > >>>>> <mailto: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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